Talk:Genetic history of Europe/Archive 1

Problems with the "North and Northeast African influences" section

 * E3b did not leave the Horn of Africa in the Neolithic. That was the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic. By the Neolithic it was in the Near East, from where it spread to Europe and North Africa (see the article for references).


 * The Spanish study using the p49/TaqI marker A) deals with Y-chromosomes not mtDNA, and B) is outdated and unreliable, with anomalous results not duplicated by any other research . Small Victory

You are right. I propose the following version:

North African and Near Eastern influences
There are a number of genetic markers which are characteristic of North African and Near Eastern populations which are to be found in European populations signifying ancient and modern population movements. These markers are to be found throughout the continent. For these, Near Eastern and Proto-Basque (Native European) influences see:  

Veritas et Severitas 00:21, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Small Victory has made a point and I agree with him, so it is two of us here. The new version is much more reliable, rigorous and global, and covers all of Europe. If someone does not agree, please participate in the discussion. Of course, the source is important and detailed enough to elaborate more on it, and expand the present version of this section, and I propose it. Veritas et Severitas 14:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Admixture from Neolithic expansion from Anatolia vs. North African admixture
It seems necessary to make a distinction between these two elements. The Neolithic element in the European gene pool is huge and even dominant in much of Eastern and South Eastern Europe. North African admixture seems to be inexistant in most of Europe except for Iberia and Sicily, and in both these regions, at quite low levels.

This can be seen from an analysis of the various subclades of Y-chromosome Haplogroup E3b which distinguish between those of Balkan/Anatolian origin (such as E-M78) and those of recent North African origin (E-M81). See : http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1181965

Of all E3b subclades in North Africa (E3b is carried by an overwhelming majority of North African populations) E-M81 is by far the most common, E-M78 (the most common European subclade) being minor or absent in most population samples.

Taking Italy as an example, an analysis of E3b in different regions of the country shows that this haplogroup is of continental origin (reaching the peninsula either from the North or from Greece) except for in Sicily where about 5.5% of male lineages can be ascertained to be of North African origin (see table 1).

Similar conclusions can be extrapolated from Mtdna analysis. Any comments?

--Ismael76 20:19, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Generally accurate, but you also have to keep in mind that all of these are simply vectors for a haplotype that originated in East Africa. I didn't know that only 5.5% were of recent origin in Sicily (of about 27.3%); I had thought it higher, but you're right. Furthermore, Andalusia has about 5.3-4% recent N. African admixture, Catalan 3%, and Spanish Basques 2.1% (all from the data for E-M81). It should definitely be distinguished as the presence of specific mutations represent separate and distinct population events. &mdash; ዮም  |  (Yom)  |  Talk  • contribs •

Ethiopia 23:44, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Haplogroup e3b first evolved or mutated in northern egypt 20,000 years ago. e3b descends from E which first appeared in Chad or Sudan, E descends from Haplogroup YAP which first appeared in Uganda and YAP descend from M168 which first appeared in east africa and is the "adam" haplogroup, first human. So all e3b came from north egypt to europe just via different routes (i.e balkans or spain). --Globe01 11:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge genetic history section of White people to "Genetic history of Europe"
So, I'm proposing a merge of the genetic information off this page. Why? I see two reasonable alternatives for the merger: --Carwil 02:20, 15 January 2007 (UTC) Re-proposed and copied to Talk:Genetic history of Europe. Please continue discussion on Talk:White people.--Carwil 15:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's lengthy, specialized and not central to most people's understanding of "white people" - Unlike even the appearance information, haplogroup membership is irrelevant in nearly all settings to the categorization of whether people are or are not white.
 * At least 174 million white people do not have their genetic history adequately covered, and cannot have it adequately covered without including the entire genetic history of Africans in the Americas and Native Americans. The number comes from adding 74 million White Americans of some African descent to 100 million White Brazilians, nearly all with some nonwhite ancestry. Considering other whites in the Americas would clearly mean more.
 * The haplogroup info perpetuates a category error - It imagines that "white people" forms a genetic category that is clearly inherited along with genes when it isn't (consider Colored people, African Americans etc. for noninheritance), and biological coherence attaches to the category (consider Mexican descendants of Spaniards whose status a white people changes when they enter the United States or Canada). In other words, haplogroup members aren't all white people.
 * Putting it a little stronger, one main purpose of the term white people, in say the United States or England, is to differentiate people from non-white people who may even be their own children (with a nonwhite partner).
 * Haplogroup info could theoretically be part of any social group page, but the reasons for including it are weak, especially if the category is much more recent or very different in scale than the relevant migrations (so Europe is a reasonable category, but Czechoslovakia or Naples almost certainly not). Since haplogroups are primarily used to study genetic and migratory history, it would be more relevant to reproduce the relevant historical information in the actual article and defer genetic details to an article about genetics.
 * The genetic section could be eliminated. - This would most clearly reflect the category error concern above, but would eliminate interesting information, and is unlikely to produce consensus among editors.
 * The opening paragaphs could stay and change and a quick genetic/migratory history summary added with reference to Genetic history of Europe.

Kurgan hypothesis
Why is only the Kurgan hypothesis mentioned? This is highly POV. The view that Indo-European languages were introduced in the neolithic by farmers from Asia Minor is well established, even if North Americans don't like it. Alun 06:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

SquadalaMan (talk) 05:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC) Aye, but the fact is that the Kurgan hypothesis is backed up by genetics, and this is a genetics page.

Kurgan hypothesis is "not" supported by genetics, as R1a1 is most diverse in Northern India, Afghanistan, Iran and north Pakistan, also some of the highest level of this haplogroup is reported in Central Asia and northern India.74.12.102.226 (talk)Ddd0dd —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:09, 13 February 2009 (UTC).

Does this article have a point besides POV pushing?
Massive problems with this article.
 * 1) This article suffers from the same problem that the article Population genetics of the British Isles did, in that it is impossible to discuss the so called "Genetic history of Europe" without discussing the real archaeology and history of Europe. I suggest that this article is either AfDd, or is re-named something like Prehistoric settlement of Europe. I do not understand what a "Genetic history" is supposed to mean, there is genetics, and there is the limited amount genetics can tell us about the past of our species (and it is very limited), and there is archaeology, which can tell us a great deal about the material culture of the past of the human species, and there is history, which according to the OED is A written narrative constituting a continuous methodical record, in order of time, of important or public events, esp. those connected with a particular country, people, individual, etc. So the article needs to be renamed at least.
 * 2) There are two sections that are composed of a single point of view, with a single reference, making them blatantly POV. Indo-Europeans and Uralic_Influence. It's as if someone is systematically including only the point of view that supports their personal opinion, while refusing to include the alternative point of view. This is a clear breach of the neutrality policy. We are all supposed to include all points of view, irrespective of our own opinions.
 * 3) There are sections that consist predominantly quotes, this is a clear breach of the what Wikipedia is not policy, "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" and  "editors should try and work quotations into the body of the article, rather than in a stand alone quote section. 'Wikipedia is not a list or repository of loosely associated topics such as quotations.' A simple list of quotations would be better suited for our sister project, Wikiquote." see European_Population_Substructure, Haplogroups and Uralic_Influence.
 * 4) This article seems to be a collection of people pushing alternative POVs, there is no narrative, and there is absolutelly no structure here. This is not an encyclopaedia article, it is a series of contradictory statements (usually quotations) by people trying to push their personal opinions.
 * 5) The only sections with any merit are Paleolithic and North_and_Northeast_African_influences. Alun 07:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * As a layperson, it is not clear to be why this article is disputed. What are the "alternate POVs" that are supposedly being pushed?--Sylvain1972 19:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Seldin 2006 paper
Why is the important influence of Asian origins in Central and Norhtern Eruope so much downplayed here. There is a lot of information about it. That section should be much bigger. Lots of information missing. Some people take care of it please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 10:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Why languages are mixed with gens. This is not ok!
wors move like a wind, while genes are not a polens at least as we know now. Nasz 06:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

ok —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 10:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sub-saharan admixture
The most recent admixture test from AncestryByDNA, using autosomal markers, mentions that the average South Europeans type with approximately 5% sub-Saharan genetic material (Iberia 6.6 % and Greece 4.8 % being the highest). By comparaison European American get 3% and Northern Euro < 1%. Even though in some cases, for an individual, a low reading such as this may be negated by the confidence interval, in South Europeans low levels of sub-Saharan admixture are consistenly found, making them signature results for these populations. This means they are not stastical "noise," but true results. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.36.29.208 (talk) 08:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and then Iberia has the most ancient Eropean ancestry and according to one of the papers in the article (# ^ Measuring European Population Stratification using Microarray Genotype Data [2]) those modern Iberian populations are the furthest away from other continental groups, making them the purest Europeans. On top of that they also have among the highest values of the West European marker R1b and on top of that it seems that R1b originated in Iberia itself. So, what shall we make of all this? I think it is all pretty confusing--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 10:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Purest Europeans ? A long time ago, maybe... Today certainly not, with and average of 6.6% sub-Saharan admixture and an European % < 80 (almost the same as North-Africans according to AncestryByDNA's autosomal testing). But why do you want them to be the purest ? In my opinion Spanish people (with Italians and North-Africans) are the most beautiful people in the world...

I basically agree. I do not beleive in those stupid purity questions. I am only wondering about all these studies. Cheers.

Sorry but those studies are not reliable at all. Ancestry is not a serious scientific organization, it is just a business that uses autosomal studies (very unreliable due to recombination at every generation) and on top of that it has been accused of suspicious manipulation of data and absurd conclusions. Only university and recognizaed experts should be allowed here. Reliable sources that very much contradict the results made public by this American business. ___ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 09:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The main problem lies in the samples and the methodology. This company is American and most of their customers are American. They have litle or no penetration outside the US or non-English speaking countries. They self identify by mail. In the end most samples are from US citizens who identify as Irish, Spanish, Portuguese (Iberian) etc. They poorly represent the people from the countries mentioned. Peter--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 07:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Good reason only to use European based studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.84.83.60 (talk) 00:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats not true. People are carefully chosen and perfectly represent the people from the countries mentioned (at least 4 grand-parents born in the country they represent). DNAPrint which holds two patents and has seven patent applications pending related to genetic markers is a serious scientific organization which has published its work in the scientific literature :
 * Parra, E., Marcini, A., Akey, J., Martinson, J., Batzer, M., Cooper, R., Forrester, T., Allison, D., Deka, R., Ferrell, R. and M. Shriver. 1998. Estimating African American Admixture Proportions by Use of Population Specific Alleles. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 63:1839-1851.
 * Pfaff, C., Parra, E., Bonilla, C., Hiester, K., McKeigue, P., Kamboh, M., Hutchinson, R., Ferrell, R., Boerwinkle, E., and M. Shriver.2001. Population Structure in Admixed Populations: Effect of Admixture Dynamics on the Pattern of Linkage Disequilibrium. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 68:198-207.
 * Parra, E., Kittles, R., Argyropoulos, G., Pfaff, C., Hiester, K., Bonilla, C., Sylvester, N., Parrish-Gause, C., Garvey, W., Jin, L., McKeigue, P., Kamboh, M., Ferrell, R., Pollitzer, W., and M. Shriver.2001. Ancestral Proportions and Admixture Dynamics in Geographically Defined African Americans Living in South Carolina.American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114:18-29.
 * Frudakis, T., V Kondragunta, M Thomas, Z Gaskin, S Ginjupalli, S Gunturi, V Ponnuswamy, S Natarajan, and P Nachimuthu. 2002. A Classifier for SNP-Based Racial Inference. In Review, Journal of Forensics Sciences.
 * Multilocus OCA2 Genotypes Specify Human Iris Colors, which describes the identification of numerous new OCA2 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) associations with iris color and how they can be used together to predict iris color from DNA, has been published recently in july 2007 in the journal Human Genetics, a respected peer-review journal which publishes the latest research in the field.

Truth is that Amrican studies about Europeans are all suspect. Intrestingly when the samples are taken from Europe and carried out by European experts and universities the results are very different from the American ones who think that they represent the populations of the entire world. It is typical of their ignorance. If you want a study about Europe, do ti in Europe, not in America. It does not matter how they identify. Americans have been mixing for generations to represent any other population properly. Anyone who knows the Americans knows too well how they tend to overemphazise their European origins, often just saying they are 100% European and tending to hide non-European background. It has to do with their problems with race. Once and for all, only studies that use samples from Europe should be use to speak about Europeans. And smaples from Africa for Africa, and not hyphenated Americans. Peter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.63.167.16 (talk) 16:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, according to that study, North Africans, Europeans and Middle Easterns all hae significant Native American ancestry. It is all ridiculous. It can be explained if the samples come from American citizens, though. ___ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 07:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I am french, live in france and I did the test. They found 10 % of Native american in my dna. Of course I have no ancestor in America and the genetist told me that it could be explained because "It was these Central Asian populations that at one point migrated to the Bering Sea land bridge and into the Western Hemisphere where they became known as "Native Americans" even though they were not really "Native". (These migrations may have started around 30,000 years ago but continued in waves for thousands of years.)  It is known that the Central Asians also went South and West into the Middle East and especially to Europe through Turkey, Greece and Italy and their genetics are very often found in those population groups..."

Nope, the Asian influence is strongest in Easterna and Northern Europe. Just make some serious research.--- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 10:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

The claim that southern Europeans have around 5% subsaharan is difficult to square with the fact that they range through 3.6% to 6.6% north african influence - which was the principal means by which the subsaharan influence historically entered that part of Europe. Subsaharan African slavery was insignificant in Europe, except in the Algarve, a very small region in southern Portugal, and Lisbon. Elsewhere in Iberia, and mainly in the south, there was some use of Africans primarily as domestic servants of wealthy aristocracy or rich merchants - in other words, very few relative to the total population, and nothing like the slave plantation culture of the American south. The great aristocratic owned properties of southern Europe overwhelmingly used local day (wage paid) labour. For all intents and purposes there was nearly no indigenous or mestizo immigration back into Europe from the Americas during the colonial period - that is a phenomena of only the last 30 years. Finally the consistently different results between American based v European based studies makes one suspect that given the ethnic politics of America, whose subtlety and complexity I'm just beginning to appreciate, makes one wonder at the reliability of even official records of ancestry that American based researchers may be relying on. Paternity is always suspect, after all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.84.82.207 (talk) 10:24, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The trouble with the genetic studies is that it's all done with probalbilities and people have difficulty in understanding that mutations, let's say f.e. those defining E3a, maybe be conserved in their anctestry for a very long time. As the molecular clock depends heavily on the mutation rate, questions like 'should the proximity of an uranium ore in the vicinity of some ancient people be taken into account?' are possible. The molecular clock ONLY TELLS YOU WHEN THE MUTATION (in your specific line of ancestry) IS ESTIMATED TO HAVE HAPPENED (and gives a time frame), it DOES NOT (certainly) TELL YOU ANYTHING OF YOUR RELATIONS (make a paternity test instead, or some such).


 * Since there is variation in haplogroups in every people today, it is ridiculous to even try to define some "pure races". That was tried during the WWII (guess by whom), and found out to be a bad idea. Those trying to clone themselves or define some "pure race" are comparable to narcisists mad scientists, imho. 91.153.60.171 (talk) 09:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

There's only one "race" - the human race. Anyway the above argument was clearly not about paternity but about possible other sources of subsaharan haplogroups in Americans of southern Europeans. It is a failure of imagination that leads to investigators not considering that in the upheaval - both physical and emotional, and the loneliness, the breaking of old ties, etc (especially in the old days) that European women might not have engaged in relations with say American mestizos and even blacks with whom they would have been cast with on the journey and in the poor districts, where most migrants usually started off - which was then disguised by claiming a different paternity on official papers. Thus American based studies of Iberians and Italians, or in fact any Europeans will have to be taken with scepticism in comparison with European studies such as the presence of typically subsaharan haplogroups in such populations. Relying on official documents, while useful, has limitations. 58.84.93.134 (talk) 05:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC) I should have added to the above that each generation will always produce a small percentage of children with falsely attributed paternity, thus over time making legal documents ever less useful. This is obvious but it seems that it has to be shouted out so people can understand why taking samples from the original populations and not proxies from a "melting pot" society like America, is so important. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.84.86.121 (talk) 02:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Uralic or Asian influence
This secton is too small. In fact almost nothing. I have read that the Asian influence goes from very important to significant in Norhtern, Central and Eastern Europe, but I am no expert. Therefore I think this part should be worked on. --- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 09:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. There is a section devoted to sub-Saharan African admixture in Europeans but none devoted to East Asian admixture (though the Uralic section touches on this subject).  According to Luca Cavalli-Sforza, there may be twice as much East Asian DNA in Europeans as sub-Saharan, though this contention was articulated in a way that can be interpreted in different ways. -- Gerkinstock (talk) 03:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Seldin study
I would like to point out that the Seldin study is not considered very credible by many geneticists, both in its methods and in its conclusions, and that there are no other papers that corroborate his hypothesis. It seems strange to me that it is in such high profile in this article, mixed with results from other studies with different results, and which have been corroborated over and over again. One should not overlook the fact that much recent population genetic research contradicts many racialist theories, whereas the Seldin paper seems to support them. It appears to me that attempts to highlight the Seldin paper over the conclusions of hundreds of other papers (which paint a much more complex picture of European genetic diversity, with extensive mixing, and East-West as well as North-South and other dimensions) is the product of individuals determined to affirm their racialist prejudices in Wikipedia. 84.90.16.244 19:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree.The Seldin paper is a drop of water in a sea of contradicting evidence, but a group of people in Wiki, with a lot of POV pushing are usiing it all over Wiki as the star article, ignoring most of the rest. It is the Nordicist lobby,stillvery powerful. They hate the idea that most of this research points to Southern Europe as the place of origins of most Europeans and they especially hate all this research that points to the Iberians (Basques and other Spaniards) as the most ancient population of Europe or the significant Asian influence in Northern Europe, etc. It all just tears apart their Nordic fantasies after acouple of hundred of years of propaganda. Thse people hate with especial determination authors such as Bryan Sykes and Stephen Oppenheimer, and do all they can to erase their names and links in Genetic related articlers.Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 11:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The Seldin study was OK, but it failed to identify much of the structure in Europe, probably because it didn't use enough markers. Bauchet from 2007 used microarrays to identify nearly 10,000 SNPs and got a much better result. Seldin makes some good points though, they claim that their data support a demic diffusion from the near east during the neolithic, something Y chromosome and mtDNA analyses seem to support. Bauchet et al. also seems to support hat. I can see no real evidence that the Seldin and Bauchet papers contradict each other, only that the Bauchet paper produced a finer resolution. Even so, there are many systemic problems with the science from the Bauchet paper, including possible sampling biases and the bizarre way they insisted on refering to their samples by the country of origin rather than the region. A much better analysis would be forthcoming if sampling were done by geography, for example taking a small number of samples from many geographically close regions, rather than artificially classifying samples by the country of origin. A good example of this is the excellent paper "A Y Chromosome Census of the British Isles". Generally the labelling of samples by country of origin gives the false impression that country boundaries for some sort of "genetic" barrier, which of course in reality they do not. People in the south of France are similar to people in the north of Spain, people in the east of France are similar to people in the west of Germany etc. In these sorts of genetic studies sample collection can give a very false sense of distinctness. This is also true for intermediate regions, more thorough sampling from many geographically close regions will certainly introduce a greater clianlity tot he data than the sort of discontinuous sampling of geographically distant groups such as we have seen in the HGDP and here. Actually this Bauchet work is more for "commercial" use than for proper science, they are now "marketing" their AIMs to gullible people who want to find out their "European" origins, so possibly the artificial barriers produced by the paper were deliberate? Anyway it will be some time before a sensible scientist comes at this with a more robust sampling strategy, then I expect to see far less pronounced "clustering" with most individuals belonging to multiple clusters, but with clinal variation. By the way I've changed the pic in the section to one based on the Bauchet paper, it is better than Seldin, but still not very good. Alun (talk) 12:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Genetics-a proof for the Iranian origin of the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Macedonians?
According to these article lines:'The modern Slavic peoples come from a wide variety of genetic backgrounds, attesting the complexity of the ethnogenetic processes in Eastern Europe. The frequency of Haplogroup R1a[1] ranges from 63.39% by the Sorbs, 56.4% in Poland and 54% in Ukraine, to 15.2% in Macedonia, 14.7% in Bulgaria and 12.1% in Herzegovina. [3] [4] ' and the conclusion given in afterwards, it's obvious that the genetic structure of the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Macedonians is different than the one of the other Slavs. This could be the most obvious part of the theory that these South Slavs have Iranian origin, or that they are originally Iranian tribes, who mixed with Slavs, resulting in today's 4 peoples. Also, another factor could be- the more intensive mixing of these Balkan Slavs with Illyrians and Thracs, resulting in building a distinctive genome than the all other Slavs..Cheers

Special:Contributions/24.86.110.10|24.86.110.10]] (talk) 08:00, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * "...it's obvious that the genetic structure of the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Macedonians is different than the one of the other Slavs. This could be the most obvious part of the theory that these South Slavs have Iranian origin..."

That is not obvious...not by a long shot-I dont know how one can come to such a conclusion. It is well known the Bulgarians, Macedonians, and Serbs have many affinities with Greeks and Albanians and Romanians (the natives of the Balkan peninsula)...the logical conclusion would (and I think more likely) is that the slavs either 1)hybridized with the local populations,and therefore have less r1a or... 2) there werent many slavs to begin with-which make it another case of a 'ruling elite imposing their culture on the locals'-scenario'.

I dont see how you can draw such a conclusion...

66.82.9.18 (talk) 06:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This is nonsence! This phenomenon is explained by “the genetic contribution of the people who lived in the region before the Slavic expansion”, which meens autochtonus people, not Iranian, Semitic, Hamitic or other bullshits! Jingby (talk) 06:42, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

1.what Iranian are you refering to? Iranian as in "citizen of Iran" or Iranian(Iranic) people? supposadly the Iranian (Iranic) maker is the same as slaves,R1a1, and is in found in highest level in Tajiks (64%). Iranian citizen however is another story. Citizens of Iran are devided into to main groups:upper part of the country (haplogroups I,R,G are dominant, very close to Europe)and southern part of the country (J2 and E are prominant which is close to Asian-African populations), also it could further be devided in East (R1a1 is the major maker, around 35%) and west (J2 is major haplogroup). Pretty much most human mutations, except the very extreme eastern Asian cases, exist in Iran.

2. All European nations at some point have passed the Middle-East or lived there. Most of the so called European races mutated somewhere in this area. So really don't use genetic for your lame nationalistic/racist ideas and watch your language when talking about other nations. 74.12.102.226 (talk) 15:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)Ddd0dd

3D bars of Genetic Distances in Europe deleted??
What happened to them? What made you delete them? They were way more illustrative and explanatory than these confusing R1a, R1b Haplogroups and clustering analysis chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Europe#European_population_substructure. I don't think anyone can disagree with that. I think it should be brought back. I believe those charts derived from well-respected, valid researches like the Cavalli-Sforza's. Unless they were fake/made-up/propagandistic/false I see no reason deleting educational charts like these. DefendEurope (talk) 18:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * yo i found the charts pic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:European_population_substructure.png

seems it was deleted by some Spanish guy> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/62.136.31.118 diff> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Genetic_history_of_Europe&diff=prev&oldid=156909003 who was somehow offended by the results (i can't tell exactly in what way but i think by the not-so-intense bonding of Spanish genes in the rest of the South-European gene structure. which is not a big deal. Spanish people still belong to the south-European genes.)

anyway, i also found that the research was indeed valid. For more info here> http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0020143 The analysis was performed using 749 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) informative for European substructure (selected from a genome-wide panel of more than 5700 SNPs). 749 polymorphisms are more than the triple polymorphisms needed to make a valid human genes' research. Note that there have been political-racist propagandistic researches that have used 1 polymorphism. 1 as opposed to 749. Usually 200-300 Polymorphisms used. Conclusively I see no point in not including this> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:European_population_substructure.png pic in the European population substructure paragraph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Europe#European_population_substructure

is anybody against my thoughts? DefendEurope (talk) 19:09, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Why don't you read the section in the talk page immediately above entitled Seldin study and discuss it there? By the way the map that is currently in use is derived from Bauchet et al. (2007) Measuring European Population Stratification with Microarray Genotype Data a paper that used 10,000 SNPs to Seldin's 5,700 SNPs (not 749 as you state) and so it produced far better resolution. Whereas Seldin et al. detected only three robust clusters Image:Seldin geography.png, Bauchet detected five Image:Bauchet European clusters.png. The Bauchet et al. paper is more recent, uses more genetic markers and produces better substructure resolution, it also relies on exclusively European samples rather than samples from North America where there is more chance of samples being derived from people with ancestry from several different European regions, which would further decrease resolution. It's obvious why it is a better source for identifying European substructure. Personally I thought the image you want to put back was largely uninformative and somewhat messy. Alun (talk) 20:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

2. I did not question the quality of the Bauchet 2007 research. 3. I do not propose the current pic should be replaced with the 3D graphs. All i'm saying is since they are both valid researches they should both be presented. 4. the motive of the re-adding of the Seldin 3D graphs is purely for illustrative purposes to any reader of the article. It's a genetics article, not the Front Page News. Why should it be Laconic and so space economic? it's just a pic more =/ why not?
 * First of all I did mention there were 5700 SNPs in the Seldin 2006 research. the 749 were the actively used.


 * 5. Compare the illustrative strength of the 3D graphs> Image:European_population_substructure.png with that of the cluster structures. this> Image:Bauchet European clusters.png and this> Image:Seldin geography.png both are poor illustrations by no-matter-how-good researches. Finding a better chart to show the Bauchet results would be the best thing. but do we have anything else? i don't have any political/racist motive. Wobble, you didn't even delete the pic. the Spanish guy did. Anyway, I just think the 3D charts are nice and easy for the reader to see how genetic samples scatter throughout the nations of Europe. like that> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cavallisforzageneclusters.jpg pic. All the other illustrations are confusing and not directly useful to draw conclusions from. just a thought. DefendEurope (talk) 23:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't have a problem with including the Seldin diagram as well as the maps, though I think it's a very poor illustration of the data and I disagree it has greater illustrative "strength", that's simply a subjective judgment, the maps are better because they display the clinal nature of genetic clustering. As for your motivation, I didn't claim you had any political/racist motivation, though your user name does imply a bias no one is entirely politically neutral. Alun (talk) 09:14, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

New article: Genetics of the Ancient World - Invitation to add content about ancient people groups in Europe
You are invited to add relevant journal articles and short summaries of these articles as per the ancient people groups in Europe to this page at your convenience: Genetics of the Ancient World. Please follow the existing format. This is a reference list with short summaries that refers back to main article pages on wikipedia. Hkp-avniel (talk) 18:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Opening sentence load of rubbish
"European populations have a complicated demographic and genetic history, including many layers of successive migrations between different time periods, from the first appearance of Homo sapiens in the Upper Paleolithic to contemporary immigration." Actually, what the genetic researches reveal about Europe's past is its simplicity. Europeans are made up of essentially two putative "parental" origins and then, depending upon history and geography there are a bunch of minor, one could almost say trace, influences. It cannot be stated more clearly - a village elsewhere in the world has nearly as much diversity as the whole of Europe! Provocateur (talk) 03:00, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, come to think of it, its a hilarious example of the lengths PC will go to; the impression given by the opening sentence is immediately contradicted by the body of the article, especially the next two sections that provide the overview. As for the "successive migrations between the different time periods" it should be pointed out that most that  - apart from the Neolithic demic diffusion - were INTERNAL displacements of already closely related people, and of these internal movements, the ONE that really matters (the others being small bodies of conquerors - see Cheddar man for an example of the strength of local continuity) was the post glacial expansion from southern refugia into the north. Provocateur (talk) 03:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * "a village elsewhere in the world has nearly as much diversity as the whole of Europe!"
 * Do you have a source for this statement? This is completely incorrect as far as I know. The region with the greatest diversity is Africa south of the Sahara, that's obvious because that's where our species has lived the longest. Outside of sub-Saharan Africa the amount of diversity is greatly reduced due to the bottleneck created during the RAO migration and our species relative recent settlement outside of Africa. Of the regions settled after the African migration those regions farthest from Africa have the least diversity, this makes sense as genetic diversity has been diluted as the founder effect and bottlenecks have lead to a serial dilution of genetic diversity. The regions with the least diversity are therefore the Americas and the Pacific Islands. If you take a look at Long and Kittles paper "Human genetic diversity and the non-existence of biological races" they make this point very well. In this paper the samples with the least diversity are from the Americas and the Pacific Islands as we would expect, with the European samples more diverse and an Asian sample (from India) the most diverse sample outside of Africa.
 * {| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"


 * Region || Ethnic group || Diversity (FST(κ))
 * Africa
 * Sokoto
 * 0.000
 * Asia
 * Kachari (NE India)
 * 0.147
 * rowspan="2" | Europe
 * German
 * 0.177
 * CEPH
 * 0.195
 * rowspan="2" | Pacific
 * Samoa
 * 0.275
 * Kalam (New Guinea)
 * 0.302
 * rowspan="2" | Americas
 * Dogrib (Canada)
 * 0.269
 * Pehuenche (Chile/Argentina)
 * 0.232
 * }
 * So the claim that Europe is less genetically diverse than any "village elswhere in the world" is not supported by this paper at least. Indeed I think it is well understood that genetic diversity is not especially low in Europe compared to many other parts of the world outside of Affrica. Europeans are slightly less diverse than the sample from north east India, but all samples are much less diverse than African samples and Europeans are more genetically diverse than people from the Americas and the Pacific Islands. It's a shame the paper does not contain samples from east Asia, but one might guess that parts of east Asia are about as diverse as Europe is. Basically Europe has intermediate diversity compared to the extremes, which one would expect given it's intermediate geographic position. Alun (talk) 06:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * rowspan="2" | Americas
 * Dogrib (Canada)
 * 0.269
 * Pehuenche (Chile/Argentina)
 * 0.232
 * }
 * So the claim that Europe is less genetically diverse than any "village elswhere in the world" is not supported by this paper at least. Indeed I think it is well understood that genetic diversity is not especially low in Europe compared to many other parts of the world outside of Affrica. Europeans are slightly less diverse than the sample from north east India, but all samples are much less diverse than African samples and Europeans are more genetically diverse than people from the Americas and the Pacific Islands. It's a shame the paper does not contain samples from east Asia, but one might guess that parts of east Asia are about as diverse as Europe is. Basically Europe has intermediate diversity compared to the extremes, which one would expect given it's intermediate geographic position. Alun (talk) 06:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
 * }
 * So the claim that Europe is less genetically diverse than any "village elswhere in the world" is not supported by this paper at least. Indeed I think it is well understood that genetic diversity is not especially low in Europe compared to many other parts of the world outside of Affrica. Europeans are slightly less diverse than the sample from north east India, but all samples are much less diverse than African samples and Europeans are more genetically diverse than people from the Americas and the Pacific Islands. It's a shame the paper does not contain samples from east Asia, but one might guess that parts of east Asia are about as diverse as Europe is. Basically Europe has intermediate diversity compared to the extremes, which one would expect given it's intermediate geographic position. Alun (talk) 06:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Reading this talk page for a bit of R and R. You're quite right - my claim was over the top - the proper comparison should be with dense ancient continental populations like China or South Asia - not a village. At the time I wrote the comment I was in a mood.Provocateur (talk) 03:24, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Where is the Asian influence section?
There was an Asian Influence section that has been erased¡. first most of the content was erased, then the section itself! What is this, a place for some kind of racialist propaganda?. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 11:26, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

"Europeans are most closely related to East Asians..."
Is that what the chart says??? Am i reading this wrong? the chart shows a genetic distance of 9.5 for amerinds and 9.7 for east asians. Looking at the phylogeny charts in that study shows the amerinds branch closer to the european one, but it extends alot further...but the east asian branch is further away-but doesnt stray nearly as far from the main branch. Im not sure if im reading it right-but cant help but bring it up in case its just a lame error the original author made and everyone keeps missing. It should be noted, I dont think Cavalli explicitly said "Europeans are most closely related to East Asians..." in the Genes, People and Languages paper-so this conclusion is drawn from the author of the section-not by Sforza. Germans, Irish 66.82.9.24 (talk) 19:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Nothing on Caucasus?
Is there no info on genetics of the peoples of Caucasus? It's not present in articles on genetics of other regions (like Near East) either. --69.113.117.94 (talk) 05:52, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion of Non Europeans in this article
Why for a significant section of this article, is the inclusion of the genetics of jews? They are of non-European, semitic/arab origin. This is an article about the indigenous people of Europe who have been here for thousands of years, not about a "tribe" that has relitively recently arrived to Europe. They have had no genetic impact on Europeans, nor the other way around. Please revise this article to fit common anthropological and genetic studies of Europe. Thank you.--71.135.57.217 (talk) 05:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Had you known anything basic about genetics, you'd realize that the "tribe" mainly belongs to the Y-DNA haplogroups J and J2, which are found all over Europe at significant levels, and especially southern Europe, specifically Greece, Italy and Turkey. Matter of fact, Greeks, Turks, Italians and Jews are the closest genetic relatives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.117.94 (talk) 02:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I had no idea. Fascinating! [This is not a reply from the original poster.] -Preceding unsigned comment added by Leukippos, 04:44, 10 January 2009 (EST)

Neolithic debate and Africa section
I would like to propose a re-do for the Africa section with a simplified and more up-to-date text. Something like the following :


 * An element of direct African genetic ancestry amongst Europeans is attested by the presence of Haplgroup E1b1b (formerly E3b). The latest study by Cruciani postulates that there have been several different migrations and population expansions associated with the halpogroup E1b1b, the only haplogroup belonging to the E superfamily which is found in Europe.


 * There have been three major, as well as a few minor gene flows from northern Africa, the most ancient of which is associated with the clade E1b1b1a1 (characterisde by the E-V12 mutation), which originated in NorthEastern Africa 15.2 kY ago. Significant frequencies are only found in western and central Southern Europe, ie in Italians and Iberians, with an average frequency of 4-6%. It represents a direct migration from Nth Africa to Sth Europe via the Mediterranean Sea circa 13 kYa.


 * The most frequent E haplogroup in Europe is E1b1ba2, carrying the E-V13 mutation. This haplogroup has the highest frequency in Europe, especially the Balkans region where frequencies are in excess of 20 % whilst frequencies are 2 -5 % in Western Europe. It has the highest diversity in the Near East, suggesting that it arose there, not Africa itself, c. 10 kYa. A small migration of people carrying the E- V13 mutation from Western Asia into SouthEastern Europe then occurred. It later expanded from the Balkans to western and eastern Europe and back to Anatolia 5.3 kYa, due to a population expansion from within the Balkans associated with Balkan Bronze Age. This goes against older studies which postulated that it represented a direct migration of of peoples from northern Africa to Europe by way of Anatolia.


 * A third major migration of Africans to Europe is attested by the E1b1b1b(M-81) clade. It is found in Iberia at frequencies of (1-6%), peaking at 12% in Sth Portuguese. Lack of differentiation compared to it North-Western African parent gene suggests a recent flow directly from Africa to Iberia, likely due to the Islamic occupation of Iberia and the presence of Sephardic Jews.


 * Thus it appears that direct migrations from Africa are largely limited to southwestern Europe, and to a lesser extent central Southern Eureope. The demographic expansion represented by Haplo E1b1ba2 previously thought to represent as evidence of a Neolithic migration from western Asia to Europe more likely represents an in situ expansion of authochthonous Balkan peoples Hxseek (talk) 05:00, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Well. Anyone disagree ? coz I will add this soon. Hxseek (talk) 22:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

New study on Europeans using only samples from Europe.
One of the problems with this article is that it uses samples from the United States. Those studies should be deleted. This is an article about Europeans, not about European Americans. Here you have a very recent study using samples only from Europe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/science/13visual.html?_r=3&ref=science&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Waine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.16.19.23 (talk) 17:25, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Asian influence in Europe.
I have noticed a highly suspicious trend in race and genetics related articles to try and hide and delete the fact that the Asian influence is significant in some parts of Northern Europe, especially in parts of Scandinavia and the Baltic. Look how Y-Chromosome genetic markers from Asia are very common in some parts of Northern Europe.

See: http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf

In fact, this is the main reason why Finns cluster a bit apart from other Europeans (and of course this fact should not be exaggerated either) in recent autosomal studies. See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/science/13visual.html?_r=3&ref=science&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

As said, these facts should not be exaggerated, but it is a fact that the largest non-Caucasian element in Europe is in some parts of Northern Europe, the Baltic and Eastern Europe, due to the Asian influence.

It is, at least, pretty strange that this fact is being constantly ignored and deleted in race related article in Wiki, this article included. I hope this will no longer be the case and these data included. Only racist motivated reasons can be behind these facts, and as we all know, the Nordicist-Nazi-White Supremacist tradition, very active in Internet and who are very worried in trying to present themselves as very pure whites, even genetically speaking. They are especially unconfortable with the fact that Finns have among the highest percentage in Europe of blond hair and blue eyes, while they happen to have the highest percentage of Non-Caucasian genes. This maybe one of the reasons for their behaviour, since they may think it endangers their myths and propaganda. But I wonder about the majority of users here? Because I bet that most people who know something about genetics here know about this fact, but they are still happy with all these versions ignoring and hiding these data. Very suspicious, indeed. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.235.20 (talk) 18:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, its all a conspiracy. This poor guy doesn't understand the use of haplogroups as markers for migrations, which, yes, the highly prevalent Y-DNA haplogroup N3 in Finns and northern Russians had a central Asian origins, as do all the R haplogroups. This, however, occurred thousands of years ago. It more correctly refers to a common ancestor, i think the article states that Europeans are closest related to western Asian (ie Middle eastern people). Not eastern Asians, which is what we consider "Asian" today. Hxseek (talk) 07:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

No, my friend. The hap maps show clearly what they say, in spite of some people trying to say that black is actually white. And try some geography classes. The highest concentration of this Haplogroup is in Finland and the Baltic, being also very significant in Russia, but also noticeble in Norway, Sweden, the North of the British Isles, etc. and it is the result of Asian migrations, recent enough to have been Asians, as we know them today and as they can be seen still in the Asian Siberian peoples. Still, this fact should not be exaggerated. Even Finns are overwhelmingly European, genetically speaking, but the fact of hiding, ignoring and even deleting information in relation to this issue is more than suspicious. By the way, all the information regarding the African influence is just based on some studies and on what? Yeah, Haplogroups. But of course, in this case Haplogroups are good enough. Anyone who knows just some basics in genetics knows that the African influence in Europe, especially the Sub-Saharan one is negligible, while the Asian influence is much more significant. And when I mean African influence I do not refer, of course, to the fact that we are all Africans, of course, if we go back in time. And here you have some additional information:

http://racialreality.110mb.com/tatc.html

http://racialreality.110mb.com/genetic_variation.html

And I know that "racialreality" can be accused of having some agenda and probably exaggerates on this issue, but the studies that are mentioned are good and carried out by reputable experts and besides, well-known among genetic circles. Jan.


 * What are these 'components' that Cofazali is referring to ? Are they Hg ? The first paper discredits itself as a reputable scientific article by trying to equate the pictures of people with Mongoloid phenotypes with Tat-C lineageHxseek (talk) 01:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't take the slightest bit of notice of any source from "racialreality", the name of the website says it all. It's a site for old fashioned racists with an agenda to push. It's not a reliable source and so we can happily ignore it I'm also a bit worried that Jan says things like "the largest non-Caucasian element in Europe", what's a "caucasian element"? Is it something that people from Georgia warm water with? And this claim "while they happen to have the highest percentage of Non-Caucasian genes", what are "caucasian genes"? I don't know of any geneticis who would claim that a specific set of genes are exclusively associated with so called "caucasians". Even the term "caucasian" is poorly defined and means different things to different people. Anyone who uses the language of "race" when discussing human genetic variation is either ignorant or has some sort of pov to push, in my estimation. Genetic variation is isolated by distance and clinal, those groups that tend to be more geographically distant also tend to be more genetically distant. Some other factors may play a role, such as local barriers to gene flow, mountain ranges, seas and the like. Finns may be genetically somewhat distinct from western Europeans, but they are not more distinct than other north-eastern Europeans. I've seen no analyses where peoples from East Karelia or other north western Russian regions are included. All "indigenous" north eastern Europeans are more genetically like Central Asians than are people from western Europe, and all people from western Central Asia are more like north eastern Europeans than people from east Asia. That's not magic, it's common sense, and it's got nothing to do with "Caucasian genes" or "Mongoloid genes", to understand this properly one needs to stop thinking in terms discrete groups called "races", and start thinking in terms of constant gene flow between adjacent populations over thousands of years. But there's clearly another observation regarding Finns that needs to be addressed and that's genetic bottleneck and genetic drift. There's plenty of evidence that one of the genetic distinctions of Finns is due to the smallness of their founding population. No one knows how much of the distinctness of Finns is simply due to that fact. There's also populations structure within Finland, with Finns from the west of Finland being more like Swedes than Finns from the east of Finland. We can't simply make sweeping pronouncements of what are the "facts", as Jan seems to think. We report what reliable sources say, we don't interpret genetics according to how racist websited tell us.  Alun (talk) 07:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

One principal component in Europeans is of Asian origins and everyone knows it and Cavalli-Sforza proves it, among others and there is a cline of this component that goes from the North East to the South West. I am sorry if I introduced these links to Racial Reality. The reason is that I could not find an on-line link to Cavalli and the other authors. Anyway, people like Alun, who go about as so anti-racist show a special interest when genetic information about certain parts of Europe shows up in this article, while seems to show no interest in other aspects, other aspects that anyone with a minimum knowledge in genetics knows that are marginal and negligible, especially in comparison with the element that we are analysing here. He seems to have a very strange double standard, in my opinion, but who knows, maybe it is just my personal and subjective perception. Anyway, as I have noted below, the artilce now is a mess and has little to do with any type of history and a lot to do with a lot of agendas. In fact, most of the studies and authors in the article speak very little about any genetic history. This is a pathetic article. Come on¡ The fact that almost half of the article is devoted to different types of African influences is risible. Only people who have been brought up under the Afrocentrist and Nordic theory theories so popular in English speaking countries can find it normal (I mean with the black and white obsession), while at the same time show so much surprise to see any mentions of the Asian influence and make such a fuss about it. And I should say that Afrocentrism has even my sympathies, because it is a reaction to one of the most unhuman and murderous theories, Nordicism or Nordic Theory, but from an academic point of view it is just another type of propaganda that tried to counterattack another sort of propaganda, Nordicism (the basis of Nazism and all types of white supremacy and nationalist movements). And if people here do not see the traces of both movements it is because they belong to them or because they have been brought up among them so closely that they just see their things normal. And people should have seen the development of this article from the beginning, branching off from the white people´s article. Goethe already said it: We only see what we know. But as said, I am tired, so whatever, continue devoting 50% of the article to negligible influences and make a fuss to ignore and delete main components of the European genome, whatever. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.39.43.52 (talk) 17:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)


 * One principal component in Europeans is of Asian origins
 * That's just nonsense, principal components are non-directional. It is impossible to know whether this sharing of genes between Europe and Asia is an "Asian contribution to Europe" or an "European contribution to Asia". As I said, it's best not to think of it that way at all, it's best to think of it as a bi-directional gene flow over many millenia. Obviously Y chromosome and mtDNA analyses can tell us something of the migratory histories of certain clades, but we must remember that this probably only tells us a small fraction of the migrations that actually occurred. Y chromosomes and mtDNA are prone to genetic drift, so much information is lost. Especially the difference between Y chromosome diversity (very geographically contained, little diversity) and mtDNA diversity (much more geographically diverse, much more diversity) tells us something about how much shuttling of, especially women, there must have been in ancient times (incidentally Hammer et al. (2008) believe this is evidence for polygyny) . That's mixing up genes, and autosomal analyses show us just how much genes really are mixed up. But PC analysis can never tell us direction, and that's something that anyone who knows what they are talking about should know. Indeed if we look at Y chromosomes in Europe the deepest clades separate at the DE, C,F transition, although we should remember that F is far and away the most common haplogroup outside of Africa and in Europe. [[Image:Europe Y semino F.png|thumb|Haplogroup F]]. But here's the thing, all of the haplogroups you are talking about are sub groups of F. Even when we talk about the deepest division of F in Europe, it's not the division of "Asian" vs "non-Asian" haplogroups, it's the division of F into IJ and K. Talk of "origins" seems just daft to me. All of these haplogroups mainly have origins in South Asia. You talk about the "Asian" origins of Europeans, but I don't know what that means, Asia is a big place. I've been assuming you mean that east Asians have contributed to European genetics. Well of course they have, but Near Eastern people are the closest group to Europeans, and south Asians are the next closest group, probably closely followed by east Africans. Whatever you say, of the non-African peoples, people from Europe and the Middle East are obviously closest to Africans genetically because we're geographically closest to them and geographic proximity is a good indicator of genetic similarity. Obviously you have to put this in context, all non-Africans are more close to each other genetically than they are on average to Africans (so Europeans are closer to say, indigenous Australians than they are to the average African), due to the bottleneck of the recent African origin of non-Africans. On the other hand non-Africans are probably more closely related to African populations that derive from east Africa, because east Africans are probably the descendants of the people who were the source populations of the out of Africa migration (or if you like, all non-Africans are the descendants of east Africans, so we should be comparing non-African genetics to east African genetics and not to "generic" African samples from say western Africa or southern Africa). As has been stated north-eastern Europeans, including Finns, may have a more distinct genetic legacy than other Europeans, for example they do not seem to have been involved in the Neolithic expansion, which probably means that they lack many of the Middle Eastern genes that probably flooded into Europe at that time, that's going to make a difference, for example see Dupanloup et al. (2004). The claim of "Asian" origins is a little confusing, all of us have Asian origins, the Neolithic expansion came from the Middle East, that is in western Asia. One theory postulates that Eurasia was populated by expansion from India and southern Asia (e.g. see "Out of Eden" by Oppenheimer), clearly those places are in Asia. That means all non-Africans have "Asian origins", just as we all have "African origins". "Origins" is such a bad word, because our "origins" depend on time depth. Our real origins are Africa, after that all we have is various places where our ancestors may have "stopped off" for a few millenia or so. Do Finns have some Central Asian genetic legacy, probably they do, and I don't have a problem with mentioning that, but we need to put everything into context and not get hysterical about it. Making baseless accusations about the motivations of people editing this article won't get you anywhere. Alun (talk) 07:25, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Sure, Alun, sure. Now go and erase all traces that mention the Asian issue, or some friend of yours will do it. You accuse some links of racist holes, and you are probably right, but some articles in Wikipedia, this one included, are far away more the work of these types of people than any of the ones that you mention.

See this article:

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/18/6/1077

I cut and pasted this:

"Using a Y-chromosomal base substitution ("Tat") that seems to have arisen in Asia, Zerjal et al. (1997)Citation proposed a significant Asian contribution to the paternal gene pool of the Finns, the Saami, and the Estonians but less of a contribution to the Norwegians; subsequent work has identified the same marker in the Latvians (Lahermo et al. 1999Citation ). Thus, the Y chromosome is an effective genetic tool for revealing the patterns of variation in this area"

And you know that this issue is very well known among experts in genetics. And they call this influence Asian. I have noticed that you have a big problem with names when you want. You do not like the Spanish influence to be called Spanish. You do not like the Asian influence to be called Asian, and go around all this issues with a lot of Sophistry. You are one of them, Alun, and the tragedy is that you do not even know that. And by the way, this issue concerns all of Northern Europe.The Finns happen to have the largest influence, but this influence is present in many other countries, whether people like you line it or not. Jan.
 * Please read my above response. It's clear from your comment here that you have not. You might also like to be a bit less hysterical in your responses. If you'd bothered to read what I wrote above you would see that I actually said that there are many "Asian" influences in Europe, but that it really depends what you mean by Asian. After all the neolithic contribution to the European gene pool is not disputed by any geneticist, that's an Asian contribution to Europe. If you were more clear and less hysterical, and were less prone to call other editors names and impugn their contributions, then you might get further in improving the article. I have not denied anywhere that haplogroup N3 is common in Finland, nor that this probably derives from some Volga-Ural men that migrated to Finland. Though of course there is evidence that the femal line in Finland is more western European in origin. What I am saying is that the genetic distinctness of Finns cannot be exclusively attributed to "Asian genes". But you're not interested in what I am saying, and are more interested in pretending I am saying something else. You attribute things to me I have not said, and what I do say you claim is Sophistry. I get the distinct impression that you only partly understand what you are talking about, and are extremely confused on much of the detail. Indeed you don't seem to understand the basic difference between autosomal genetics and Y-chromosome/mtDNA genetics. On the whole I agree with you that this article could do with a major clean up, but I don't think your approach is at all constructive. You appear to be more interested in calling other editors names than than anything else. BTW Rootsi et al. (2007) have a whole paper about Haplogroup N if you are interested. What I object to is your insistence that the sharing of genes between geographic regions is due to an "event", rather than a process. You seem to think that movements of peoples happened a single time in history and never again. Sharing of genes between populations is an ongoing and dynamic process. Alun (talk) 10:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, but you know that all references to this type of Asian influence have been deleted over and over again in this article, to be fortotten and ignored later. Why? For several reasons. Not so much because it is found mainly in Eastern Europe, but also because it is found in Scandinavia and also because, although to a smaller degree, it is also present in European countries like Norway, Sweden, etc. I do not think that that is hysterical at all. It is just a statement of facts. And if you are familiar with the history of this and other articles and their authors, it is mainly the work of Nordicists who are using Internet and Wiki for their propaganda. Again, not to see that is incredibly naive, to say the least. In fact I do not think that this issue is of any great importance. All Europeans are closely related and all continental groups are closely related, in turn. Therefore my indignation is not about this or that genetic fact, of course, it is about something else. It is about manipulation, it is about how some types of information are magnified and other types of information, incredibly, deleted and fully ignored, and if you are familiar with this article you should know that very well. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.8.186.54 (talk) 10:18, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Jan, you say some things which totally undermine your status as an acedemic. Quote it is found mainly in Eastern Europe, but also because it is found in Scandinavia and also because, although to a smaller degree, it is also present in European countries like Norway, Sweden, etc.

Mate. Sweden and Norway are in Scandinavia. WHen you write sentences like the above one, it is a little hard for people to take you seriously. No offence.

Secondy, please try and eveluate for yourself what you mean by "Asian" genes. Because R1a, R1b, N3 are al mentioned abundantly. No Nordic conspiracy here Hxseek (talk) 23:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you sure?. I thought Sweden was next to Australia. You see how ignorant I am. And read the article provided, by me and even Alun. Whenever I come across people who deny so vehemently what is written in black and white they are always the same, deeply ignorant (border line), Nordicists or Nordicist acolytes. Any user can read those articles and judgde in which group you belong. No offence. Jan.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.233.3 (talk) 12:54, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * What is your problem? You practically call someone a nazi, then you say "no offense"? I've asked you not to get so hysterical, you don't impress anyone here by calling everyone who disagrees with you a "nordicist". Your style of argumentation is based exclusively on ad hominem attacks. Whenever someone disagrees with you, your automatic response is to call them a racist or a nordicist. You should understand that this makes you look much worse than it does the person you are attacking. People here are allowed to query your claims, they are allowed to ask for reliable sources, and they are allowed to question what you mean. A great deal of your posts are very confusing, it's often very unclear what you actually mean, if someone asks you for clarification it doesn't help to immediately attack them. It's curious that you have been posting here for some months but refuse to get yourself a proper account. That makes people suspicious. It also makes it very difficult for anyone to contact you outside of article talk pages. There are some pages that I think you should really read regarding Wikipedia policies about content and talk page behaviour. Firstly I strongly recommend that you get yourself an account. If you are LSLM it doesn't matter because your ban is finished, if you don't want to use that account, then please make a new one. If you aren't LSLM then please disregard that last sentence. But please get an account. At the least read the following policy pages: WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NPA and WP:AGF. BTW do you believe everything that is written in black and white? I certainly don't. We are not here to repeat every single thing written down in black and white. We're writing an encyclopaedia, that means we rely on reliable sources. Alun (talk) 16:17, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Quite Hxseek. The neolithic expansion is also given time in the article, and that's clearly a discussion of the near eastern influence on the genetics of Europe. The last time I checked the near east was in Asia. Jan needs to say exactly what his problem is. I don't see how there can be "suppression" going on here while at the same time these theories are also mentioned in the article.
 * I think the article can be improved this way:[[Image:Wiik (2008).png|thumb|Diagram from Wiik (2008) "Where did European men come from?" Journal of Genetic Genealogy. JoGG publishes under [[Creative Commons]] license, so I took the liberty of uploading this image to the commons. See also this.]]
 * Currently the article approaches the subject from the a genetic point of view. This is a systemic problem, we should approach the subject from an historical and chronological point of view.
 * Firstly history, what were the first theories about the genetic origins of Europeans, why were these held. This will involve some comment about the chauvinistic attitudes of some Europeans during the nineteenth century, especially the chauvinism of the bougoise and upper class towards the working classes, and the chauvinism of so called "nordic" people to non-nordic people. Some discussion of "race" is obviously necessary, though it should be generally brief.
 * Next a run through of the various theories of how Europe was populated, and the genetic evidence for these theories.
 * Paleolithic before the LGM, where the various haplogroups come from originally. Migration out of Africa, where and how the sub-groups of F arose and their migration to Europe. We'll see that in fact nearly all common European haplogroups (with the possible exception of E3b), have arisen in Asia. Wiik (2008) has a nice diagram of this, I think it's a bit clearer than the one currently in the article.
 * Paleolithic, what is the evidence for the paleolithic population of Europe? Discussion of the various Ice Age refugia and the dominant Y haplogroups that existed in these refugia. Wiik (2008) has written a nice (but long) review paper about this in the Journal of Genetic Genealogy. Wiik is actually a linguist, so he gives a linguistic perspective as well.
 * Neolithic, evidence for the secondary colonisation of Europe from the near east, bringing farming to the continent. Discuss the relative contribution of neolithic farmers compared to paleolithic population. This is important because autosomal analyses seem to indicate a big contribution from the near east (~50% of European genes come from near east during the neolithic), but mtDNA and Y chromosomes seem to indicate a much bigger contribution from the paleolithic than from the neolithic (about 80% of European genes are of paleolithic origin and there was not a big demic diffusion during the neolithic). Obviously these can't both be right and this is the biggest bone of contention about the origins of Europeans currently under discussion. What's the evidence for both.
 * Discuss why mtDNA and Y chromosomes produce such different patterns of diversity. Discuss the theories of polygyny and female migration vs. male stasis. Aslo discuss the idea that Y chromosomes lack diversity because only a few very successful men produced large numbers of offspring. Most men produced few offspring. Women on the othe rhand are more likely to have at least some children relative to men.
 * Special status of some groups, Finns, Saami, Basques. Language isolates and genetic distinctness.
 * All of these theories/ideas are discussed in published academic journals. Even if they are not all universally accepted, there is evidecne for them and they have been published, we just need to include them and cite them. Alun (talk) 07:25, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that is a good approach. I need to acquaint myself with more 'autosomal' studies, because, -as you point out- the haplogroup studies definitely point to a predominantly Palaeolithic model. ANd the Neolithic influence, obviously, is not a flat 80% or 50%, but would vary from SEE to British Isles. Before launcing into Palaeolithic vs Neolithic models, perhaps we can begin with an overview of what we so far know, eg from archaeologcial evidence, about the peopling of Europe (the first arrivals c 45 kYa, the LGM 14 kYA, evidence of Neolithic culture intrusion 7 kYa, the supposed Kurganization in early Bronze age, the reported "Mass migrations" of the 400-900s AD, etc). We also need to point out some of the potential limitiations to haplogroup approach, such as the effects of selection, mutation, drift, etc. Hxseek (talk) 06:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, let´s forget our differences (although we have a few). I think that you put a lot of work in this subject and the outline that you have made is quite good. So, go ahead and good luck. I have other things to do and sometimes Wiki takes the time that I do not have. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.233.3 (talk) 12:19, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

This article does not look much like its heading
If this is about genetic history here you have an article that deals with it:

http://www.pnas.org/content/98/1/22.full

The article right now is in fact a mess that has little to do with history.Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.33.232.174 (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

New maps
Can someone integrate these maps into the article?:  Phoenix of9 (talk) 00:15, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * They're a bit hard to create, and I find them aesthetically displeasing Hxseek (talk) 07:07, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, that 2nd map is nice. I'll see if I can create anything similar. Looks a bit complicated Hxseek (talk) 23:08, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Upgrade
I propose the following upgrade to improve the article (which I shall be happy to commence soon(ish). If any has further suggestions, then feel fre to add)

(1)To start off: discuss European's relationship to other continental populations, and to each other (as already done, but perhaps integrate more)

(2) Minimise the "haplogroups" section. Perhaps just a summary of the different modes of DNA evidence (autosomal, protien-level, Y, mtDNA), and which groups are found in Europe, the assumptions (and weaknesses) of genetic studies.

(3) Remove the western european substructure section (as well as the 2-lined eastern Euro section), as it is artifical to divide europe into east and west, at least geneticaly-speaking. This will be anyway covered in (1) above

(4) Keep the migrations section, but link it more with the genetic evidence. Add a paragraph on Neanderthals, and their (lack of) relationship with modern Europeans.

(5) We do not need to keep an entire section on "African influences". Why does it deserve an entire paragraph for itself ? It can be worked into the rest of the article through the palaeolithic, neolithic, post-Roman migrations, etc, as supported by whatever evidence which might exist

Hxseek (talk) 10:08, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed! Go for it! The Ogre (talk) 15:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Works for me too. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 11:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with most except, the African influences, shouldn't be spread out over several sections. Related information should be found in close proximity. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, (to Wapondaponda) that's one way, sure. But then its not chronological. If we're talking of 'genetic history', shouldn;t we procees in some kind of temporal sequence ? Hxseek (talk) 00:05, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The "percentage genetic distances" chart isn't helpful (yet)
The "percentage genetic distances" chart is not something that the average encyclopedia reader can understand. Even with a background in anthropology, I was only able to figure out what it was trying to convey after looking at it for quite a long time. The chart needs to be re-done in a much more intuitive fashion. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 11:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Numerically, I think that current chart is probably the easiest way to express the information. The other possibility is to use a dendogram. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Misleading inclusion of map & dishonest caption
I've removed a map one user has added (and not for the first time either) which, according to its caption, claims to indicate "the spread of haplogroup E-M78 from Northeast Africa". This map is sourced to a study by Cruciani et al. (2007) and claims to be based on that study's Figure 2A. However, Figure 2A of Cruciani et al. (2007) indicates the map is of "the observed haplogroup/paragroup frequencies." It says nothing about the "spread" of E-M78 much less from where that spread originated. In fact, Cruciani et al. (2007) indicate that E-V13, the most common sub-clade of E-M78 in Europe, originated in situ in the Balkans during the Bronze age. Its presence in Europe was not due to "recent medieval North African/Near Eastern admixture", (admixture which, incidentally, is usually restricted to E1b1b1b i.e. E-M81, not E-M78, the latter of which has an ancient presence in the region) so the map in question should not under any circumstances be placed in the section of the same name as the user has attempted. Moreover, a map of E-V13, the most common sub-clade of E1b1b found in Europe, has already been included in the article, and that map already accurately covers the distribution of E-V13 in Europe. Causteau (talk) 17:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes E-V13 originated in Europe, but the bearer of the mutation was someone who carried an E-M78 lineage that extended to Northeast Africa, and ultimately extended to east Africa. Along with his Y-chromosome, they certainly carried some sub-saharan dna, which is confirmed by Cavalli-Sforza's classical polymorphisms. With regard to M1, its origins are still disputed, but there is general agreement that M1a arose in East Africa, and this haplogroup is found in Europe too. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * What a load of crock and an utter red herring:


 * No kidding E-M78 originated in Northeast Africa (Egypt/Libya, for the unitiated); who said it didn't? E-M78 didn't just, however, "ultimately extend to East Africa". It spread from North Africa to the Horn, the Near East and Europe from its Egyptian homeland. East Africa doesn't ipso facto have any sort of "first dibs" on or "special relationship" with, as it were, the clade; it doesn't work that way.
 * Cavalli-Sforza's work using classic autosomal markers asserts absolutely nothing of the sort you claim. You are quite literally fabricating information (and that has no bearing on the present article, to boot).
 * No, the origin of M1 is not "disputed". Actually, it was settled quite a while back, as was the origin of its parent haplogroup M: Both haplogroups were accorded an Asian origin. But of course, you already know this since you've been trying for weeks now to manufacture a "debate" to revive the long-dead African origin hypothesis on the haplogroup M talk page. Now you bring up the origin of M1a, as if any modern study asserts that its parent M1 clade originated in East Africa. M1a isn't even the oldest sub-clade of M1, but of course you're busy attempting to deny that too on the haplogroup M talk page! LOL Causteau (talk) 18:25, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

E-M78 is a mutation of E-M215 for which there is no dispute of its East African origins. We could easily substitute E-M215 for E-M78 and it would be perfectly valid. Many Europeans today have a Y-Chromosome of an East African man. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That's absurd. E-M215 originated at least 30,000 year ago (and likely far before that, given Karafet et al. (2008)'s recent pushing back of haplogroup E's TMRCA to 52,500 years ago and E1b1's TMRCA to 47,500 ybp), a good 10,000 years+ before E-M78, which, by comparison, first arose only about 18,600 years ago. E-M215 also arose in a very different environment from both E-M78 & E-V13 with very different selective pressures acting upon the host population. I'd also add that R1a originated in Central Asia, yet it's the second most frequently observed haplogroup in Europe today. Using your logic, the many modern Europeans who carry the haplogroup today would therefore have "Asian" admixture, which is of course preposterous. Causteau (talk) 18:51, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually that is exactly what Cavalli-Sforza states He describes Europeans as being a mix of Africans and Asians. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:07, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, that is not at all what Cavalli-Sforza states. He speaks of the genetic distance of Europeans between Sub-Saharan Africans and Asians as being a product of geographic distance, not admixture as you seem to be suggesting/hoping. Causteau (talk) 19:18, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Unless genes spread by air. The last I knew genes spread by sexual reproduction, and people tend to mate with people living nearby, ie geographic distance. He specifically states in the book, the article is an excerpt, that there has been significant gene flow between Europe and Africa in recent history and in prehistory. Hence Europeans occupy an intermediate position between sub-saharan Africa and Asia, by virtue of the classical polymorphisms. The y-chromosome is transmitted in whole, so out of 46 chromosomes, many europeans have one that is in essence of East African origin. Add to that the many other nuclear genes that must have come along with the Y chromosome, it makes sense. Cruciani et al estimate E-M215 to be 22000 years old. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Again, you're inventing stuff. Cavalli-Sforza make no such assertion which is why you are unable to quote him on the matter -- a matter which, incidentally, has absolutely nothing to do with your actual edits. What you are attempting to "prove" is that E1b1b-carrying Europeans are "in essence of East African origin", which is most amusing seeing as how the Y haplogroup tree does not stop with E-M215, as you had undoubtedly hoped. In actuality, it reaches back to E, DE, and beyond to a common paternal ancestor for all humans. So actually, channeling your logic again, E1b1b-carrying Europeans like all other humans are first and foremost Africans since that is where humanity as we know it ostensibly began. And if we observe where exactly orginated the most recent haplogroups said Europeans belong to, it's of course typically Europe. In the case of R1a, for example, it's Asia, but that again doesn't make said Europeans anymore "Asian" than your ridiculous assertion that E1b1b-carrying Europeans are "East African". Lastly, while Cruciani et al. (2007) did indeed say E-M215 originated 22,400 years ago, that estimate was from before Karafet et al. (2008)'s update of the Y tree. One can only imagine how far back E1b1b's TMRCA will get pushed back to now considering how far back its parent clade & haplogroup E's respective TMRCA were. Causteau (talk) 19:57, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Misleading inclusion of map & dishonest caption section break 1
You guys always take the same sides! :) Anyway, let me go through a list of things I see:
 * Frequencies, spread, distribution are the same. Causteau seems to think spread implies a direction of migration. I do not think so but anyway, Cruciani do imply such a direction in their text, so let's not go overboard.
 * You are both wrong to say that Cruciani et al. say E-V13 originated in the Balkans. They say it dispersed from there. Battaglia et al. wonder, not too strongly, if it did indeed originate there, but I find that hard to see as mainstream given the way they argue this, or rather don't. Put it this way: Cruciani et al. make a strong case it originated in the Levant. (It did not get common maybe until much later in the Balkans.)
 * I am not sure if Cavalli-Sforza's classic work used what we would today call autosomal markers. Not sure on this.
 * I think Wapondaponda has mixed up E-M78 and E-M35. The current thinking is that E-M78 is much younger and has a more northerly origin than its parent E-M35 - somewhere around Egypt rather than somewhere around Ethiopia. E-M35 can be said to be equivalent to E-M215, not E-M78. OTOH I think Causteau's certainty about E-M215 being >30,000 is over-stated.
 * I think it is dubious to say R1a is more common than I haplogroups and I've had discussions before with Causterau about the pointlessness of trying to compare how common different clades are which are not clearly siblings. It is not comparing apples with apples.
 * Wapondaponda did not say that some Europeans were of East African origin, but rather their Y chromosome, which is true in some way. All of us are African, and all our genes. The question is how to say what he means. I think we need to handle this in a section beyond Cavalli-Sforza. The sections relating to the LATEST literature should acknowledge that there are still big questions about how many major emigrations there were from Africa, and when. I believe it is absolutely orthodox to say that, as Underhill said in a review not too long ago, E1b1b is a rare case of a relatively recent movement from Africa to Europe. Of course other genes went with it. I believe it is not going too far to say that there is a pretty big orthodoxy out there saying that this emigration was around about the time the Neolithic initiated.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:32, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your input, Andrew. But what you have responded to above is Wapondaponda's red herring "debate", not to his actual edits (which is the point of talk pages). The actual content of his edits are analysed in my first post in this section of the talk page (the one dated 17:46, 14 May 2009). Please respond to that. Causteau (talk) 20:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Cavalli-Sforza's work was primarily on amino acid sequences from blood proteins. So their studies are based on phenotype that is expressed from the underlying genotype. So yes it is a proxy for autosomal DNA, but much of his studies were before PCR. Nonetheless, current studies have basically confirmed much of Sforza's work. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Quotes from Cavalli Sforza
 * Europe shows a shorter (genetic) distance from Africa than do all the other continents. The difference is statistically significant and is consistently found with all markers, ranging from “classical” ones based on gene products [blood groups and protein polymorphisms (1)] to DNA markers such as restriction polymorphisms (4) and microsatellites (5).
 * Wapondaponda (talk) 21:53, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Nuh... you don't say Europe is closer genetically to Africa than, say, East Asia is to Africa (a fact which isn't necessarily attributable to gene flow, by the way)? Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Wapondaponda. You conveniently forgot to mention, however, that Europe is closer genetically overall to all other continents than it is to Africa. It is just geographically close to Africa. That's the difference between two people sitting on one side of a long bench and another person sitting way on the other side of the same bench: One of the two in the nether regions is necessarily closer to the person all the way at the other end of the bench, but certainly not closer to that person than to the one right beside them. I don't suppose you've actually looked at the genetic distances involved have you? If you had, you'd know better than to concoct such a silly argument. It's like this: nowhere in the quote above does Cavalli-Sforza state that the people who introduced E-M78 to Europe had "some sub-saharan dna" as you originally claimed, 2) nowhere does it state that this supposed admixture "is confirmed by [...] classical polymorphisms" as you have also claimed, and 3) nowhere does Cavalli-Sforza even come close to describing "Europeans as being a mix of Africans and Asians", which was the thrust of your digression. The forgoing is just more of that famous original research you can't seem to stop producing. Causteau (talk) 22:41, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The full details are in the book . Unfortunately it is not available online. Basically Europeans are the population with the most African admixture. A review from the nytimes states

Misleading inclusion of map & dishonest caption section break 2

 * Cavalli-Sforza shows that the European population is the most genetically mixed-up on earth, being a mix of genes from Asia and Africa.GENES, PEOPLES,AND LANGUAGESWapondaponda (talk) 23:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see. LOL So the full details are in the book now. See, I could've sworn you asserted (and rather confidently) not once but twice that the relevant information was in the article above. I could've sworn you linked me to the article in question and even quoted a passage directly from it which you believed supposedly "supported" your claims. But now I see that you are reduced to quoting lay journalists (a book reviewer, no less) rather than Cavalli-Sforza himself to support your absurd argument, an argument which wasn't, by the way, that "Europeans are the population with the most African admixture"; that's your new and necessarily less ambitious argument -- I wonder why that is? It's the book reviewer that says that Europeans are "a mix of genes from Asia and Africa". Cavalli-Sforza himself does not and you know it, which again is why you are unable to quote the relevant passages from the book despite claiming to have read it. That "it is not available online" is a cop-out, but an understandable one given the situation you are in. I'll tell you what though: Cite which exact section & page number of the book the famous information is located in, and I will only too happily look it up for the both of us and relay to you what we both already know (or perhaps you'll do the honors and quote it directly yourself?). Causteau (talk) 00:07, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * page 52 but depends on the edition,
 * In order to examine the problem of the constancy of evolutionary rates, we can look at the distances between Africa and the other continents: 24.7 with Oceania, 20.6 with Asia, 16.6 with Europe, and 22.6 with America. It is clear that the shortest distance is between Africa and Europe, followed by that between Africa and Asia. If the rate of evolution were truly constant, the four values would be identical (within the limits of statistical error due to small sample size)


 * The distance from Europe is anomalously low. North Africa is populated with Caucasoid people like Europeans, but we have made sure to eliminate these populations and are restricting ourselves to Sub-Saharan Africa. The simplest explanation is that substantial exchange has taken place between nearby continents.
 * Wapondaponda (talk) 00:23, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for producing that quote, Wapondaponda. Now that I see it, it's pretty clear why you seemed hesitant to produce it in the first place. The quote above directly contradicts your actual edits. You ostensibly brought up Cavalli-Sforza as a way of "proving" that E-M78 in Europe somehow constitutes "Sub-Saharan" admixture. Yet, there is Cavalli-Sforza grouping North Africans with Europeans as "Caucasoid people" and specifying that he and his team "made sure to eliminate these populations and are restricting ourselves to Sub-Saharan Africa." Remember that the section in question in the Genetic history of Europe article is on recent medieval North African/Near Eastern admixture in Europe -- not Sub-Saharan admixture. You have again shot yourself in the foot my friend, but the irony is that this never would have happened had you just let it go instead of pushing it as is your wont. Causteau (talk) 00:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes it does, if it originated in Africa fairly recently, and ended up in Europe, its admixture. Even when Cavalli-Sforza eliminated North Africans, and compared Europeans with Sub-Saharans, he found an anomalously short genetic distance. If there were no admixture between Europe and Africa, Europe should have had a genetic distance similar to that of Australia, at 24.7, rather Europe has a genetic distance from Africa of 16.6. True Cavalli-Sforza doesn't reference E-M78, but talks about autosomal admixture. Nonetheless, there is a correlation. As Andrew mentioned, most likely during the Neolithic, there was demic diffusion of farmers from the Near East into Europe. Due to proximity to Africa, some of the farmers who brought agriculture to Europe were had African admixture and carried E-M78 along with other sub-saharan nuclear markers into Europe. This is clearly illustrated in Cruciani's map or Semino et al. Of course the neolithic is just one event, in paleolithic times there would have been several migrations.
 * Note that prior to the development of Agriculture, all humans were hunter gatherers, who lived an egalitarian lifestyle. The notion of European, Asian or African didn't apply to hunter gatherers. They went where the food was, and picked up mates wherever they were available. Specifically since in paleolithic times, population density was really low, hunter gatherers couldn't afford to bother whether someone was from originally from Asia, Africa or Europe as may be the case in the modern world. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Europeans have significant African admixture. Wapondaponda (talk) 02:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Your original research is getting very annoying. Cavalli-Sforza assert no such thing, which is why you are still unable to produce a quote supporting your claims. The shorter genetic distance of Europe from Africa compared to the genetic distance of other continents from Africa is not necessarily caused by admixture/gene flow. This is what you personally would like it to be, but haven't produced any evidence supporting that when clearly asked to. In case you are wondering, evidence means quotes directly from Cavalli-Sforza, the reliable source in question per WP:PROVEIT. You have been told by two separate editors now -- myself and Hxseek -- that the recent admixture in Europe involved E-M81, not the E-M78 indicated in that map based on Cruciani et al. (2007) that you've been attempting to add to the article. According to Battaglia et al. (2008), E-M78 in the form of its dominant E-V13 sub-clade represents ancient in situ differentiation. Cruciani suggests that perhaps it may have arisen in Anatolia, which is hardly Sub-Saharan Africa, making your claims of "Sub-Saharan admixture" all the more preposterous. And even prior to that, when E-M78 first arose in North Africa, according to the Cavalli-Sforza quote you yourself produced, that North Africa is populated by "Caucasoid people like Europeans", not Sub-Saharan Africans. You write that "due to proximity to Africa, some of the farmers who brought agriculture to Europe were had African admixture and carried E-M78 along with other sub-saharan nuclear markers into Europe." What's amusing about this quote is that E-M78 is not Sub-Saharan. It is Northeast African (i.e. Egypt/Libya), as Cruciani himself has made clear in his 2007 study. You also claim that that quote "is clearly illustrated in Cruciani's map or Semino et al." Ahhh, no it isn't. Again:
 * "I've removed a map one user has added (and not for the first time either) which, according to its caption, claims to indicate 'the spread of haplogroup E-M78 from Northeast Africa'. This map is sourced to a study by Cruciani et al. (2007) and claims to be based on that study's Figure 2A. However, Figure 2A of Cruciani et al. (2007) indicates the map is of 'the observed haplogroup/paragroup frequencies.' It says nothing about the 'spread' of E-M78 much less from where that spread originated. In fact, Cruciani et al. (2007) indicate that E-V13, the most common sub-clade of E-M78 in Europe, originated in situ in the Balkans during the Bronze age. Its presence in Europe was not due to 'recent medieval North African/Near Eastern admixture', (admixture which, incidentally, is usually restricted to E1b1b1b i.e. E-M81, not E-M78, the latter of which has an ancient presence in the region) so the map in question should not under any circumstances be placed in the section of the same name as the user has attempted. Moreover, a map of E-V13, the most common sub-clade of E1b1b found in Europe, has already been included in the article, and that map already accurately covers the distribution of E-V13 in Europe." Causteau (talk) 11:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Misleading inclusion of map & dishonest caption section break 3
I've got a hard copy of Cavalli-Sforza's book. I'll check what he exactly says about the mixing of Europe.

As for E M78, from what I know, it originated somewhere in northeastern Africa. Battaglia proposes that it spread northward by foragers during the increased precipation period associated with the Holocene. No-one is sure exactly where V13 itself arose. Obviusly, as these foragers dispersed, new mutations arose. Cruciani alludes to a possible Anatolian origin, then moving into the Balkans anytime after 17 kya. he connects its actual expansion with the Balkan Bronze Age. Instead, Battaglia and King link it to late Mesolithic/ early Neloithic expansions from within the Balkans also, tentatively placing its origin to somewhere in the southern balkans. With such uncertainty, and wide confidence intervals, we can hardly embrace any hypothesis. (this is the problem with genetic studies).

None of this apparent African madmixture is reflected in Cavalli-Sforza's discussion of principal components. I.e. none of his 5 PCs show a cline emanating from northern Africa. Makes sense, given that Y DNA data do not show any significant direct migration from Africa, except a few, different lineages such as M81, which are limited to Iberia and southern Italy. Instead Y DNA data point to central Eurasian and western Eurasian origins of current European Y DNA pool, in the form of the R1 and IJ supercomplexes, respectively {and I use "Eurasian" because, geographically, Europe and Asia are one continent, and their separation is political/ cultural. Therefore we do not need to speak of "Asian" origins, and the emotive responses it might elicit in some readers). Hxseek (talk) 00:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually the first PC is cline emanating from the Near East indicating the spread of farming. It is this cline that would be representative of African admixture as populations from the Near East had some African influences. Wapondaponda (talk) 00:50, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input, Hxseek. I think that's a fair summary of the situation. Causteau (talk) 00:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I also think Hxseek's summary is reasonable, except that I'd point out that the Africa/Eurasia connection in ALSO not a true separation of land masses. Though this remark is an aside and not strictly relevant to this article about Europe, I think that there is no true distinction to be made between "direct" and "indirect" migration if, as in Battaglia's hypothesis, there was a relatively fast movement by hunter gatherers. Anyway so what? What is it in the wiki article that we are actually debating? I think some of this debate is off topic and getting confused. Perhaps this is because the current article focuses too much upon very old work in Cavalli-Sforza. C-S's "classical" work, as it is called in the wiki article, can be mentioned perhaps, but it has basically been surpassed by work on DNA which he has himself been heavily involved in. I don't think anyone disagrees that E-M78 and E-M81 should be mentioned, but the way this is done is currently a mess.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * OK I want to straighten something out. I have not read extensively about this, but have read a bit and know something of genetics. Hxseek states that "Y DNA data do not show any significant direct migration from Africa", this is clearly incorrect. I don't think anyone, except a small number of multiregionalists, disputes that our species arose in Africa. And it's clear that the founder of all extant Y chromosome clades leads us back to Africa. So we are all descended from people who directly migrated from Africa. But even if we discount our initial African origins, I am under the impression that many Haplogroup E subclades are thought to have originated in north eastern Africa and subsequently migrated into the Near East and Europe. Hxseek seems to be saying, when he says "Y DNA data do not show any significant direct migration from Africa", that no haplogroup E clades that currently occur in Europe arose in Africa. I'd like to know the source of this claim. ISOGG states that "Y-DNA haplogroup E would appear to have arisen in Northeast Africa based on the concentration and variety of E subclades in that area today. But the fact that Haplogroup E is closely linked with Haplogroup D, which is not found in Africa, leaves open the possibility that E first arose in the Near or Middle East and was subsequently carried into Africa by a back migration." This is not an equal statement, ISOGG is clearly saying that it is more likely that E arose in Africa, but that there is some possibility that it arose int he Near East. But Hxseek also says "As for E M78, from what I know, it originated somewhere in northeastern Africa", which seems to contradict his claim that there was no direct migration. Actually I'm not entirely sure what he means by "direct migration", and I'm not sure it's relevant, the initial map and caption made no claim for direct migration anyway. In some respects I think this is a red herring, isn't the consensus that haplogroup E and it's subclades are generally involved with bi-directional gene flow between south west Asia and north east Africa? And isn't it clear that there is evidence that during the neolithic there was gene flow from the Near East into Europe? I don't think it's OR to say that haplogroup E might indicate some African gene flow into Europe. In fact I don't think there is any dispute, either from historical or genetic evidence, that African genes have flowed into Europe. We know that there are historical contacts between north east Africa and south east Europe, e.g. during Egyptian and Roman times. But what I find most odd about this debate is they way people are making absolutist claims. I don't understand Causteau's initial claims at all. He starts by stating that Cruciani "says nothing about the "spread" of E-M78 much less from where that spread originated", that's fair enough, but that is not a good reason for not including the map, it is a good reason for modifying the language of the caption. Indeed Cruciani may not say that, but it is well understood that the highest variation of a haplogroup in a population is generally considered to be the point of origin, it's not necessarily important what Cruciani does not say, but it's important to include accurately what he does say. So what does the paper say about the origins of this haplogroup? Then he goes on to say "In fact, Cruciani et al. (2007) indicate that E-V13, the most common sub-clade of E-M78 in Europe, originated in situ in the Balkans during the Bronze age.", I doubt that Cruciani says this at all. Cruciani probably says that based on his data set, the Balkans is the most likely place for E-V13 to have arisen. Good scientists very rarely make unhedged statements, science is based on evidence and hypothesis, so they nearly always couch things in terms of evidence supporting or detracting from any given hypothesis. But again, this is not a good reason for not including the E-M78 map. Clearly E-V13 is a sub-clade of E-M78, so it is absolutely clear that the E-M78 map is relevant to the article. If I can be frank, this looks to me like nothing more than an attempt to try and exclude any data that suggests that there has been recent African gene flow into Europe, and if I'm honest I don't know why anyone who is interested in neutrality would want to do this. Both points of view have some validity, but there is no right and wrong here. Hapolgroup E does provide evidence for north east African Y chromosome gene flow into Europe, and E-V13 may well have arisen in Europe. But to pretend that one of these has greater importance than the other is basically a breach of our neutrality policy. As for claims of African/European admixture, I don't think that's relevant to the original inclusion of the map, neither the map, nor the caption made this claim, it simply stated "The spread of haplogroup E-M78 from Northeast Africa", if Causteau has a problem with the word "spread", then that's easily remedied, simply change the caption to something like "Frequencies of haplogroup E-M78 by geographic region" or something like that. My problem with this map is that the intensity of shading should reflect well defined frequencies of the haplogroup, but these are not given, what is the proportion of E-M78 in the intense orange populations compared to the lighter yellow? It is important to include these frequency data in my opinion.


 * One final point, there is some discussion of principal components analysis of classical protein polymorphisms. I don't think that's relevant. Indeed that's synthesis. If we are discussing Y chromosomes, then let's sick to that. If anyone here is going to use data from different studies to produce their own theory, then that's OR and a synthesis. If we are discussing a Y chromosome map, and whether it should be included, then discuss what the authors of the paper that the map comes from say, and discuss the relative merits or including the map, or excluding it. But any discussion of whether autosomal data support Y chromosom data or not should be left to those who write reliable sources, that we can then cite. It really is OR for us to try and synthesis data from different sources, that use different sampling techniques, and that measure different things, and claim that these support the pov that we prefer. Remember we're here to cite what reliable sources say in a neutral way. Frankly I think there is a certain amount of different people pushing their own favourite theory while rubbishing the theories they don't like. We're supposed to work collaboratively. Don't dismiss a map just because you don't like it, or just because you have a problem with the caption. Why not edit the caption so it doesn't make a claim that the original paper doesn't make? Try not to take absolutist positions, and try to see others' points of view. Alun (talk) 06:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your opinion Alun, but I'm afraid you are missing both my and Hxseek's point. I suspect this has to do with your misinterpretation of what Cruciani et al. (2007) mean when they speak of "Northeastern Africa", which is a fairly common and understandable error. It's like this:


 * Cruciani et al. (2007) indicate that E-M78 originated in "Northeastern Africa". However, in their study, Northeastern Africa refers strictly to the Egypt/Libya area (please see Table 1 of that study or Dienekes). It does not refer to the Horn of Africa, which the authors term "Eastern Africa". This naming dichotomy is very consistent throughout Cruciani's other studies as well.


 * The recent admixture in Europe from North Africa & the Near East comes in the form of E-M81, not E-M78. This admixture is chiefly concentrated in Iberia (particularly Portugal), and is usually seen as the mark of Berber/Islamic expansions.


 * Battaglia et al. (2008) indicate that E-V13, the most common sub-clade of E-M78 in Europe, originated in situ during the Bronze age; it was not brought there recently through Berber/Islamic incursions. Cruciani et al. (2007) suggest that E-V13 may have arisen instead in Western Asia during the Neolithic and then entered Europe. That too is not recent admixture.


 * User:Wapondaponda has added a map of E-M78 with a caption that reads: "the spread of haplogroup E-M78 from Northeast Africa". This map is sourced to Cruciani et al. (2007) and claims to be based on that study's Figure 2A. However, Figure 2A of Cruciani et al. (2007) indicates the map is of "the observed haplogroup/paragroup frequencies." It says nothing about the "spread" of E-M78 much less from where that spread originated (no mention of Northeast Africa). In other words, Wapondaponda has added a map showing the distribution of E-M78 in Africa, the Near East and Europe, but has modified its caption to make it seem as though it is, in fact, a map showing the radiation of E-M78 chromosomes from Northeast Africa and outwards (which it isn't). He has then added this map to the section of the Genetic history of Europe article titled "North African/Near Eastern admixture" to create the impression that this widespread distribution of E-M78 in Europe represents recent "admixture" from Africa -- when of course, that distinction goes to E-M81, not E-M78 which is of ancient provenance; this is why the section in question's discussion of E1b1b's sub-clades is restricted to E1b1b1b (E-M81) -- Sub-Saharan admixture no less as he has repeatedly insisted. That is original research, pure and simple, since Cruciani et al. (2007) make no such assertion. Causteau (talk) 11:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Small remark: Battaglia et al. (2008) only say E-V13 might have originated in the Balkans. In fact their wording implies it is likely to have been in either the Balkans or Southern Turkey. They seem to want to emphasize the Balkan possibility but they do not say it outright, and their data favours Southern Turkey. Furthermore, they only manage saying any of this by totally ignoring Cruciani et al's Druze data, and making illogical remarks about the lack of ancient clades in modern places.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Battaglia et al. (2008) state unambiguously that E-V13 originated in Europe: "In addition, the low frequency and variance associated to I-M423 and E-V13 in Anatolia and the Middle East, support an European Mesolithic origin of these two clades." Causteau (talk) 12:00, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I think this means the abstract states different conclusions than the "real" conclusions in the main text, which, similar to implying that Cruciani et al. had shown no signs of higher STR variation in the Levant, or to implying that 2 cases of E-M78* in the Balkans proves explains that E-V13* happened in Europe, is problematic. Of course it presents us with a problem as editors trying to find neutral sources. The Battaglia paper definitely needs to be treated very seriously where it is clear, but what do we do when it states things in an inconsistent or apparently wrong way?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:10, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally I think Hxseek's remarks about direct/indirect point at what is confusing the discussion (and the article) and also at how we can find common ground. No one is really arguing that Europe was colonized only by boat (direct in the extreme) from Africa, and no one is really arguing against the consensus idea being that all lineages eventually go back to Africa. The problem is that people want to emphasize different leanings on this. I think the best solution requires re-structuring of the article, breaking the different types of evidence and discussion into different geographical regions or entry directions. In this way we can then group the older work by Cavalli-Sforza with new evidence about similar subjects in a legitimate way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Alun, of course all lineages trace to Africa. But if we are going to construct a good quality article, we need to be precise. I think we need to define the concept of movements, or migrations. Gseneticists belive that they can actually decipher whether a movement is a sudden demographic expansion, as opposed to a slow diffusion (based on STRs, star-clusters, etc). Yes, early studies noted the presence of E-M78 (and J2, for that matter) to be reflective of movements from northern Africa and Middle East, resp, and this is mentioned, thereby adhering to neutrality rules. However, better resolution now enables us to understand that the picture is far more complicated. But to say that V13 represents a migration from northern Africa is misleading, because its expansion within Europe has been linked to entirely different demographic phenomena. Hxseek (talk) 09:00, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Alun that Y-chromosomes and classic protein polymorphisms should remain separate topics. However, what is interesting, though need not be included, is that the results from the blood proteins and principal components are consistent with modern DNA studies. Cavalli-Sforza had proposed, based on the classical polymorphisms that there was significant bidirectional gene flow between Eurasia and Africa. However he could not accurately date when the gene flow occurred and also suggested that gene flow could be the result of multiple migratory events. All what he indicated seems to have been confirmed by recent y-chromosome data, and to a lesser extent mtDNA data. Wapondaponda (talk) 10:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Sykes and Oppenheimer
I don't believe the article is as it should be if it relies on a paragraph like this one in the current version:
 * Worldwide DNA studies have shown that a group of Homo sapiens left Africa for the Yemen some 80,000 years ago. Some of their descendants entered Europe about 30,000 years later. The Y-chromosome and the mtDNA haplogroups found in Europe differ in their frequency distributions from those in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. However some predominantly European haplogroups are found in Asia and vice versa. A similar correspondence is found between North Africa and Europe.

Can't we find better sources?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. I'm not inspired by that paragraph Hxseek (talk) 00:29, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I think if the article is to be an accurate reflection of what is published it should explain that there are different theories and still not consensus. Do others agree? Sykes and Oppenheimer are popularizers, but often frustratingly silly in the way in which they lead people to believe that so many details are known with certainty.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:30, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually whether Sykes or Oppenheimer are "silly" is a matter of opinion and not fact. I don't think there is any doubt that both are recognized experts. Indeed Wikipedia should be using secondary and tertiary sources whenever possible, rather than primary sources. As for the claims in the quote you give, I don't think they are incorrect, and I don't think you can say that this is a claim only made by Sykes or Oppenheimer. My problem with the quote is simply that it is badly written. All the quote states is that we derive from Africa, that AMH entered Europe about thirty millenia ago, and that the ratios of haplogroups in Europe are different to those in the closest geographical regions. Those claims can be supported by multiple sources. I think the real bone of contention regarding the genetic history of Europe is that regarding the relative contributions between paleolithic Europeans and neolithic Europeans. Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis has indicated a majority paleolithic origin, whereas autosomal analysis has indicated a greater neolithic contribution. So was the neolithic a demic diffusion, or was is a cultural transmission? Most papers concentrate on this debate, and that is what the article should concentrate on as well. There are at least tens of papers that deal with this. Alun (talk) 06:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The quote also makes specific remarks about a Yemen route as if they are uncontroversial. The remarks are out of date and do not represent a consensus amongst experts. Putting them in without further comment is misleading.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:44, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I also should point out in case it is not obvious that this is a fast moving field, and so it is difficult to find complete up-to-date "tertiary" sources in the sense you mean. In any case these two sources now unjustly dominate parts of the article, and are quite simply out of date, and not a fair representation of the state of affairs. This needs to be changed, because the impression given now is misleading and confusing. Out of date material can be mentioned if it seems important to explain the history of an idea, but not if it is included in a misleading way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but there is more to be said: extended discussions about Clan Jasmine and Milesians from Spain are not tertiary material in the sense intended above. They are pure speculative material which does not come from the genetics literature itself. When a NASA scientist writes about UFO's in a paperback, this does not make UFO's scientifically proven - not even if the book sells well.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:14, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Yep. I agree with Andrew. It's the Yemen bit. I've never heard about that supposed route. The heavy use of Oppenheimer and Sykes skews the article to be to 'British-centred', although I acknowledge that they are prominent figures. Also, Alun, I would not agree with your statement that autosomal data supports a Neolithic origin. Yes, autosomal data do, in general, show a NW - SE trend, but from what I have read, it is only Chikhi that actually links this as evidence for a major demographic expansion of farmers from M.E. Hxseek (talk) 09:06, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Just as an aside, this NW-SW trend seems to be to be one of the major trends (clines etc whatever word you like) that have consistently turned up in every type of genetic study since Cavalli-Sforza. These are the raw data which need to be presented, but in many cases the timing and causation of these patterns are still a matter for debate and speculation. This is why I think it is a bit problematic to divide this article up in terms of periods, and why I am thinking using Cavalli-Sforza's 5 basic principal component "trends" might be a neat solution?? This keeps the article neutral because we do not have to discuss genetic clines under categories of periods which already imply that we take a side concerning theories about what caused the clines.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:56, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The E-M78 map
There is a problem with this map. It has been put into a section which is discussing migrations which are thought to have happened in relatively recent "historical" periods, and specifically it seems that E-M78 (E1b1b1a) is being confused with E-M81 (E1b1b1b) from North Africa.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:46, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Haplotype V (p49/TaqI)
The paragraph about this subject should be removed. Whoever included it apparently does not realize that this haplogroup designation was long ago replaced by E-M35, and comments about it showing North African migrations have been improved by the discovery of the E-M35 sub-clade, E-M81, which is already discussed in the article. Furthermore, there is much more data since the days of "Haplotype V (p49/TaqI)". The current way in which the article seems to treat these as separate haplogroups is in any case simply wrong.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

heading: "historic non-European admixture"
This section heading gives a misleading and strange effect. When we speak about the components making up European genetic diversity, we are always talking about "admixture" from outside Europe, so why use this term only for a section about Berbers in more recent millenia? On the other hand it would also be strange to mention "non-European admixture" at every heading. The emphasis of the section titles should only be on the period, OR else the geographical vector of entry being discussed. In fact, I believe the article should be structured around vectors of entry instead of periods by the way, because for each case of clear genetic immigration there are debates about which period it happened in, including E-M81. This would also help make the Cavalli-Sforza "classical" work relevant, because their principal components fit well within later work when looked at this way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Section: Haplogroups in Europe
This breakdown of modern European Y and mt haplogroups is redundant. It is only relevant if the haplogroups are explained in terms of their historical affect on European genetic diversity, and indeed they are where necessary. These remarks should be integrated into other parts of the article or else dropped as something better discussed at Demographics of Europe or perhaps a new article about European Genetic Diversity for example.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:19, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

For now I have left this section in. But perhaps it should eventually be split into a new article?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

sub-sections: Western Europe substructure and Eastern Europe substructure
Whatever the original intention, these sections are apparently now entirely focused upon the concept of LGM refugia. According to the logical structure of the existing article, discussion about this entire concept, without undue focus upon Iberia and Ireland, should be in the sub-section called Paleolithic and Mesolithic migrations. It should not be separated out and treated twice. I would propose that this section in turn should be divided into pre-LGM, and post LGM sections.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:24, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Chronological sections have been tidied up now and made consistent, but I still wonder if a chronological approach is best. In any case, whichever way the material is divided up for discussion the article needs one coherent structure.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:52, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Work in progress
Hxseek, can you remember to sign your posts here? I guess I am thinking the same way as you. I think that working on this article SHOULD make most disagreements disappear, because they appear to be confusion based. I hope it will not get too many people upset that I have started moving chunks around within the article. I have tried to explain the biggest things here on the talk page, and in my opinion most of the changes needed doing. There might be cherished citations that can still find a new place in the article, but not in the form they were in.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Hxseek, concerning the opening, and the general structure of the article, might it make sense to define Cavalli-Sforza's original principle components and how he described them? This can then help structure later discussion in the article as updates in attempts to explain and describe the same patterns, which are also found in Y, at and mt DNA?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure. As long as we don't think that section is getting too lengthy Hxseek (talk) 00:16, 16 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It would probably mean re-structuring the article in order to avoid repetition. With my editing yesterday I was trying to use the structure that was already in the article.. BTW I have not done much at all concerning the Cavalli-Sforza section which essentially opens the discussion, and I am thinking you are working on that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:37, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Notes: what if we based the structure on the 5 principal components?
Here are some notes, which I have also pasted on my Sandbox. Sourcing needs to be done and many things need to be expanded, but just playing with this idea brings forward many concepts which are currently not in the article. Please consider...--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:50, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Five patterns of genetic relatedness have been identified since the early "principle components" studies of Cavalli-Sforza:


 * The exact causes of each of these is the subject of continuing discussion concerning different regions of Europe, as well as different periods of time...

1. A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the Middle East, declining to lowest levels in northwest Europe


 * Cavalli-Sforza originally described this as faithfully reflecting the spread of agriculture in Neolithic times. This has been the general tendency in interpretation of all genes with this pattern.


 * However, says there were at least four major demographic events which have been envisioned for this geographic area:
 * The "post-Last Glacial Maximum expansion (about 20 kya)"
 * The "Younger Dryas-Holocene reexpansion (about 12 kya)"
 * The "population growth associated with the introduction of agricultural practices (about 8 kya)"
 * The "development of Bronze technology (about 5kya)"


 * Concerning Y DNA, this cline is associated with E-V13, and some clades of the J haplogroup.

2. A cline of genes with highest frequencies amongst the Finnish and Saami in the extreme north east, declining to lowest frequencies in the south west.


 * Cavalli-Sforza associated this with Finno-Ugric languages, and links between Europe and Siberia.


 * This has recently received more confirmation in autosomal DNA studies. See http://dienekes.blogspot.com/search/label/Finland


 * Concerning Y DNA this cline is associated with the N Haplogroup.

3. A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the area of the lower Don and Volga rivers in southern Russia, declining to lowest frequencies in Iberia, Southern Italy, Greece and the areas inhabited Saami speakers in the extreme north of Scandinavia.


 * Cavalli-Sforza associated this with the spread of Indo-European languages, which he links in turn to a "secondary expansion" after the spread of agriculture, associated with animal grazing.


 * Concerning Y DNA, this cline corresponds to Haplogroup R-M17 (R1a).

4. A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the Balkans and Southern Italy, declining to lowest levels in Britain and the Basque country.


 * Cavalli-Sforza associates this with "the Greek expansion, which reached its peak in historical times around 1000 and 500 BC but which certainly began earlier"

5. A cline of genes with highest frequencies in the Basque country, with lower levels in an unclear pattern beyond the area of Iberia and Southern France.


 * In perhaps the most well-known conclusion from Cavalli-Sforza this weakest of the 5 patterns was described as isolated remnants of the pre-Neolithic population of Europe, "who at least partially withstood the expansion of the cultivators". It corresponds roughly to the geographical spread of rhesus negative blood types.


 * In particular, the conclusion that the Basques are a genetic isolate has become widely discussed, but also a controversial conclusion.


 * Concerning Y DNA there have been attempts to associate this cline with R1b, but these are not universally accepted.
 * I agree that the principal components are a more comprehensive approach to the genetic history of Europe. At present the article contains a lot of disconnected information that could be presented better if integrated. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:49, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

If we expanded it out would be able to cover everything in this format? For example the refugia question is basically a theory revolving around 3 and 5, and so on. Perhaps people can try editing the version now on my Sandbox to see what we can come up with as an alternative.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:07, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

-Thanks for writing that up, Andrew. I think, for PC 1, we should not include Cruciani's demographic proposals becuase they were not part of C-F's original discussion, not does Cruciani himself make specific allusion to it. Instead, for example, Rosser and Semino did in their 2000 paper, by equating it with the contrasting clines shown by R1b vs J2. In anyway, i think we should work the PCs into the history, as CF saw it. So in the Neolithic period we talk about PC1, and other Y data. Then for alleged Bonze Age IE migrations, we can talk about PC 3 and R1a. etc Hxseek (talk) 00:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, if we leave the C-S section as something separate that we do not compare to more recent data then we can not easily juxtapose different authors who are basically talking about the same genetic patterns, but for example with respect to Y DNA or whatever. Some of them cite C-S and some do not. But if we restructure the article on geographical terms, different from the current chronological terms, then we could juxtapose related studies. So there is a question of whether we restructure or not.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:43, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

The "European Population Structure" section
This section is currently tagged for neutrality concerns, and indeed it has problems. It is tempting to delete it and try to salvage some snippets if necessary.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:39, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

This reference might help!
With interests related to this article, I have had this review article published: http://www.jogg.info/42/files/Lancaster.pdf I think it contains a lot of good references and summaries that will also allow others to search further. Let's hope it helps improve the quality of knowledge and discussion on this subject.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:16, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Adams et al. study = mess
In the North African admixture section, the study that found the higher presence of North-West African infuence in Iberia was Adams et al.: "mean North African admixture is 10.6%". It should be noted that, as you can see in this table from the same study, for some unexplained reason they regarded the entire E-M78 haplogroup (including E-V13) as recent North African input in Iberia, instead of mostly Balkanic influence. Just compare the frequencies in Iberian and North-West African populations of E-M78: E-M78 rarely occurs in North West Africa, while in Iberia is as common as E-M81. If E-M78 in Iberia was introduced by recent NWA influence, then the NWA sample should have the same E-M78/E-M81 proportion as the Iberian sample. The study found in Iberia a 4% frequency of E-M78 and they added it to the E-M81 (4%) and other typical NWA markers to reach the 10.6 figure. Without accounting all E-M78 as of recent North African influence (as all other genetics studies done in Iberia do) the result is 6.6%, figure also more in accordance with the rest of genetic studies, (even though E-V12, E-V22, and E-V65, less frequent than E-V13 but also present in Iberia should also be taken into account, as in Cruciani et al.)

That study is a complete mess. Just look at the table again and see how they considered all J2 and I in Iberia as of "Jewish" origin, and it will become very clear that they only wanted to inflate the North African and Jewish numbers (according to the study 20% of male Iberians have Jewish ancestry). Look again at the table and you'll see how J2 in Iberia (8%) is much more prevalent than J(xJ2)(1%), while in the Sephardim sample they have a very similar proportion: J2 is 25% and J(xJ2) is 22%. So, the Inquisition sterilized all Jewish J(xJ2) (actually J1) carriers?. Now look at I, in Iberia almost as prevalent as J2 with a frequency of 6%, while in the Sephardim sample is only 1%. If I and J2 were Jewish infuence in Iberia then there would be a similar proportion to the Sephardim sample, so it's clear that most of the I and J2 in Iberia is obviously of non-Jewish origins (as most of E-M78 is of non-NWA origins), specially if we take into account all the E-M78, G, K, Q, I and J2 carriers that had a big impact in Iberia, like Greeks, Germanic peoples, Slavs, Arabs or Phoenicians, notable mention to the Romans, and of course the Neolithic. According to those geniouses everything that is not Paleolithic in Iberia is either Jewish or North African, even when the proportions obviously don't correspond.

That disregard to do a good analysis is even more obvious when you take into account that members of the same team, just months before that study was published regarded in other paper all the J1 and J2 in Iberia and the Balearic Island as of ...Phoenician.--83.33.135.22 (talk) 14:57, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the Adams article contains very important data, and is well done in many ways. That the interpretations of that data are a bit messy has been mentioned a few times around the internet before. Articles like this are great as sources for raw data, which is quite a legitimate need in this type of article, but we have to be careful about treating the interpretative sections as if they are a consensus, because one article can never be a consensus.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that the supplemental raw data is very valuable, but, how it is possible to consider that study "well done in many ways"? It entirely revolves around using that (good) data to make the interpretations I addressed in my previous post: no Balkanic E-M78 in Iberia, all G, K, Q, I and J2 of Sephardim origin even when Iberian and Sephardim J2/J1/I proportions (as happens with NWAn and Iberian E-M78) are very off, ignoring for some unexplained reason other historical E-M78, G, K, Q, I and J2-carriers settlers/populations in Iberia, choosing Basques as representatives of acient Iberians when other ancient groups different to Basques shared the peninsula, forgetting about the Neolithic... I would not call any research that is based entirely on those premises as exactly "well done" --83.33.135.181 (talk) 16:44, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

E3b, North African or Sub-Saharan African
E3b is found in North Africa, East Africa and Europe. But because it is a sub-sub clade of haplogroup E, it is ultimately of Sub-Saharan African origin. E3b a young clade, relative to haplogroup E and it is the only clade of E that is found outside Africa. All other clades are exclusive to Sub-Saharan Africa. Basically it is all but impossible for haplogroup E to be anything other than of Sub-Saharan African origin. Its presence anywhere outside Africa is ultimately due to gene flow from Africa. Cruciani et al specifically state
 * "Recently, it has been proposed that E3b originated in sub-Saharan Africa and expanded into the Near East and northern Africa at the end of the Pleistocene (Underhill et al. 2001). E3b lineages would have then been introduced from the Near East into southern Europe by immigrant farmers, during the Neolithic expansion (Hammer et al. 1998; Semino et al. 2000; Underhill et al. 2001)."

The hypothesis that E or E3b are anything other than of African origin are rapidly moving into the realm of fringe, theories. The Asian origin of Haplogroup E or E3b have been implicitly debunked by the evidence from recent studies. But because on wikipedia, we only report what has been written, we are simply waiting for the formal debunking of the Asian origin hypothesis. Andrew Lancaster's recent publication states this clearly:
 * In summary, when we look at the siblings and “cousins”of E-M35 in its “family tree” we see very little evidence of origins to the north of the Sahara at all. The Horn of Africa seems to have had stronger prehistoric links with the regions west of it, towards the Nile and the southern edge of the Sahara, than to the Levant. It appears possible that it was only after E-M35 came into being that the E clade became involved in migrations both to the north, to the south.

Wapondaponda (talk) 05:34, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

New Section explicitly about regional connections
I have moved all this stuff to a new section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Europe#Sources_of_genetic_admixture_in_Europe_by_region. When you see it all together now you can see how terribly redundant it has become. Can everyone start pruning? --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:24, 5 June 2009 (UTC)